


Space

by orphan_account



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: AngryLexa, ClarkeCanGrowPotatoesFromPoop, F/F, GeniusClarke, LmaoClarkeGotFuckedUp, SadLexa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-08-30 04:54:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 27,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8519260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: ( Using The Martian as reference)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have a schedule set up so I will update at random times.

The Martian Au :)

 

Clarke Griffin had officially been fucked over by the god of all fucking gods. Like who the hell would think," Oh she got whacked over the head with a huge ass antenna she's totally fucking alive." Yeah, fuck no.

Fucking, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Kneeling she looked around. Everything looked fucked. Dirt covered almost everything, and one of the two rovers was flipped and torn to hell.

She turned towards the small hill and made her way over it and then she saw the most beautiful thing she could ever see in this hell, THE HAB WASN'T DESTROYED, So god hated her and loved her. Smooch Smooch god.

Shortly after she was able to get into the HAB she took off her helmet, and breathed in deeply. She sighed, Jesus fuck how was she going to get herself out of this one?  
And shit she had a fucking hole in her suit.  
===============================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 6  
"I’m pretty much fucked.  
That’s my considered opinion.  
Fucked.  
Six days in to what should be a greatest two months of my life, and it’s turned in to a nightmare.  
I don’t even know who’ll watch this. I guess someone will find it  
eventually. Maybe a hundred years from now.

For the record... I didn’t die on Sol 6. Certainly the rest of the crew  
thought I did, and I can’t blame them. Maybe there’ll be a day of national  
mourning for me, and my Wikipedia page will say “Clarke Griffin is the  
only human being to have died on Mars.”  
And it’ll be right, probably. Cause I’ll surely die here. Just not on Sol 6 when everyone thinks I did.

Let’s see... where do I begin?  
The Ares program. Mankind reaching out to Mars to send people to  
another planet for the very first time and expand the horizons of  
humanity blah, blah, blah.  
The Ares 1 crew did their thing and came back heroes. They got the parades and fame and love of the world.  
Ares 2 did the same thing, in a different location on Mars. They got a firm handshake and a hot cup of coffee when they got home.  
Ares 3.  
Well. That was my mission. Well, not mine per se.

Commander Lexa was in charge. I was just one of her crew. Actually, I was the very lowest ranked member of the crew. I would only be “incommand” of the mission if I were the only remaining person.  
What do you know? I’m in command. 

I wonder if this log will be recovered before the rest of the crew die of  
old age? I presume they got back to Earth all right. Well, guys, if you’re watching this: It wasn’t your fault. You did what you had to do. In your position I would have done the same thing. I don’t blame you, and I’m glad you survived.

Clarke looked away for a minute and bit the inside of her cheek," I'm glad Lexa survived."

She blew out a puff of air and clapped her hands together and smiled widely

"I guess I should explain how Mars missions work, for any layman who may be watching this. We got to earth orbit the normal way, through an ordinary ship to Hermes.  
All the Ares missions use Hermes to get to and from Mars. It’s really big and cost a lot so NASA only built one.  
Once we got to Hermes, four additional unmanned missions brought us fuel and supplies while we prepared for our trip.  
Once everything was a go, we set out for Mars. But not very fast. Gone are the days of heavy chemical fuel burns and trans-Mars injection orbits."

She stopped and gave the camera a cocky look," I know shit." she winked and smirked.

"Hermes is powered by ion engines. They throw Argon out the back of the ship really fast to get a tiny amount of acceleration. The thing is, it doesn't take much reactant mass, so a little Argon (and a nuclear reactor to power things) let us accelerate constantly the whole way there. You'd  
be amazed at how fast you can get going with a tiny acceleration over a long time.

I could regale you with tales of how we had great fun on the trip, but I  
won’t cause fucking angst man, fucking angst. We did have fun though. Suffice it to say we got to Mars 124 days later without strangling each other.

From there, we took the MDV, (Mars Descent Vehicle), to the surface.

The MDV is basically a big can with some light thrusters and parachutes attached. Its sole purpose is to get six humans from Mars orbit to the surface without killing any of them.

And now we come to the real trick of Mars exploration: Having all our shit there in advance.

A total of 14 unmanned missions deposited everything we would need for surface operations. They tried their best to land all the supply vessels in the same general area, and did a reasonably good job. Supplies aren’t nearly so fragile as humans and can hit the ground really hard. But they tended to bounce around a lot.

Naturally, they didn’t send us to Mars until they’d confirmed all the supplies had made it to the surface and their containers weren’t breached.

Start to finish, including supply missions, a Mars mission takes about 3 years. In fact, there were Ares 3 supplies en route to Mars while the Ares  
2 crew were on their way home.

She smiled," Bored yet? Cause I'm still not done."

" The most important piece of the advance supplies, of course, was the MAV. The “Mars Ascent Vehicle.” That was how we would get back to Hermes after surface operations were complete. The MAV was soft-landed (as opposed to the balloon bounce-fest the other supplies had). Of course, it was in constant communication with Houston, and if there were any problems with it, we would pass by Mars and go back to Earth without ever landing.

The MAV is pretty cool. Turns out, through a neat set of chemical reactions with the Martian atmosphere, for every kilogram of hydrogen you bring to Mars, you can make 13 kilograms of fuel. It’s a slow process, though. It takes 24 months to fill the tank. That’s why they sent it long before we got here.

You can imagine how disappointed I was when I discovered the MAV was gone.

It was a ridiculous sequence of events that led to me almost dying.

Then an even more ridiculous sequence that led to me surviving.

The mission is designed to handle sandstorm gusts up to 150 km/hr. So Houston got understandably nervous when we got whacked with 175 km/hr winds. We all got in our suits and huddled in the middle of the Hab, just in case it lost pressure. But the Hab wasn’t the problem. The MAV is a spaceship. It has a lot of delicate parts. It can put up with storms to a certain extent but it can’t just get sandblasted forever.

After an hour and a half of sustained wind, NASA gave the order to abort. Nobody wanted to stop a month-long mission after only six days but if the MAV took any more punishment we’d all get stranded down here.

We had to go out in the storm to get from the Hab to the MAV. That was going to be risky, but what choice did we have?  
Everyone made it but me.

Our main communications dish, which relayed signals from the Hab to Hermes, acted like a parachute, getting torn from its foundation and carried with the torrent. Along the way, it crashed through the reception antenna array. Then one of those long thin antenna flew and whacked me in the damn head, luckily I was wearing a space helmet, cause you know, I can't really just walk out onto Mars without one. I need to breathe to live. So anyways, I felt the worst pain before I passed the fuck out.  
I vaguely remember suddenly having the wind knocked out of me (pulled out of me, really) and my ears popping painfully as the pressure of my suit escaped. Apparently there was a hole in my suit I did not realize I had until I got inside. Real stupid of me not to check but you know, hit in the fucking head with a antenna.  
The last thing I remember was seeing Lincoln hopelessly reaching out toward me.

I awoke to the oxygen alarm in my suit ( Which I ignored cause I'm a ignorant asshole). A steady, obnoxious beeping  
that eventually roused me from a deep and profound desire to just fucking die.

The storm had abated; I was face down, almost totally buried in sand.

As I groggily came to, I wondered why I wasn’t more dead. (My beautiful suit that's why) 

The suit did its job admirably. Seeing the drop in pressure, it constantly flooded itself with air from my nitrogen tank to equalize. Once the leak became manageable, it only had to trickle new air in slowly the relieve the air lost.

After a while, the CO2 (carbon dioxide) absorbers in the suit were expended. That’s really the limiting factor to life support. Not the amount of oxygen you bring with you, but the amount of CO2 you can remove. In the Hab, we had the Oxygenator, a large piece of equipment that could break CO2 apart and give the oxygen back. But the spacesuits had to be portable, so they used a simple chemical absorption process with expendable filters. I’d been asleep long enough that my filters were useless.

The suit saw this problem and moved in to an emergency mode the engineers call “bloodletting”. Having no way to separate out the CO2, the suit deliberately vented air to the Martian atmosphere, then back-filled with nitrogen. Between the breach and the bloodletting, it quickly ran out of nitrogen. All it had left was my oxygen tank.

So it did the only thing it could to keep me alive. It started back- filling with pure oxygen. I now risked dying from oxygen toxicity, as the excessively high amount of oxygen threatened to burn up my nervous system, lungs, and eyes. An ironic death for someone with a leaky space suit: too much oxygen.

Every step of the way would have had beeping alarms, alerts, and warnings. But it was the high-oxygen warning that woke me. The sheer volume of training for a space mission is astounding. I spent a week back on Earth practicing emergency space suit drills. I knew what to do. Carefully reaching to the side of my helmet, I got the breach kit. It’s nothing more than a funnel with a valve at the small end, and an unbelievably sticky resin on the wide end. The idea is you have the valve  
open and stick the wide end over a hole. The air can escape through the valve, so it doesn’t interfere with the resin making a good seal. Then you close the valve and you’ve sealed the breach.

I got the breach kit over the hole and sealed it. It held. The suit back-filled the missing air with yet more oxygen. Checking my arm readouts, I saw the suit was now at 85% oxygen. For reference, Earth’s atmosphere is about 21%. I’d be ok, so long as I didn’t spend too much time like that. I stumbled up the hill back toward the Hab. As I crested the rise, I saw something that made me very happy and something that made me very sad: The Hab was in-tact (yay!) and the MAV was gone (boo!)"

Right that moment I knew I was screwed. But I didn’t want to just die out on the surface. I limped back to the Hab and fumbled my way in to an airlock. As soon as it equalized, I threw off my helmet.

I knew it was hopeless, but I tried firing up the communication array. No signal, of course. The primary satellite dish had broken off, remember? And it took the reception antennae with it. The Hab had secondary and tertiary communication systems, but they were both just for talking to the MAV, which would use its much more powerful systems to relay to Hermes. Thing is, that only works if the MAV is still around.

I had no way to talk to Hermes. In time, I could locate the dish out on the surface, but it would take weeks for me to rig up any repairs, and that would be too late. In an abort, Hermes would leave orbit within 24 hours. The orbital dynamics made the trip safer and shorter the earlier you left, so why wait for no reason just to make the trip take longer?

Checking out my suit, I saw the antenna had fucked my bio-  
monitor computer. When on an EVA, all the crew’s suits are networked so we can see each others status. The rest of the crew would have seen the pressure in my suit drop to nearly 0, followed immediately by my bio- signs going flat. Add to that I was sent tumbling down a hill with a fucking antenna wanting to bash my skull in the middle of a sandstorm... yeah. They thought I was dead. How could they not?

They may have even had a brief discussion about recovering my body, but regulations were clear. In the event a crewman died on Mars, he stayed on Mars. Leaving his body behind reduced weight for the MAV on the trip back. That meant more disposable fuel and a larger margin of error for the return thrust. No point in giving that up for sentimentality.

So that’s the situation. I’m stranded on Mars. I have no way to communicate with Hermes or Earth. Everyone thinks I’m dead. I’m in a Hab designed to last 31 days.

If the Oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the Water Reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I’ll just kind of explode. If none of those things happen, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death.

So yeah. I’m fucked."

She leaned back," Clarke Griffin signing out."


	2. Chapter 2

The Martian Au :)

 

Clarke sat down in the chair and leaned back with a grin  
============================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 7

"Ok, I’ve had a good night’s sleep, and things don’t seem as hopeless as they did yesterday.

Today I took stock of supplies, and did a quick EVA to check up on the external equipment. Here’s my situation: The surface mission was supposed to be 31 days. For redundancy, the supply probes had enough food to last the whole crew 56 days. That way if one or two probes had problems, we'd still have enough food to  
complete the mission.

We were six days in when all hell broke loose, so that leaves enough food to feed six people for 50 days. I’m just one gal, so it’ll last me 300 days. And that’s if I don’t ration it.  
So I’ve got a fair bit of time. 

The Hab stood up to the storm without any problems. Outside, things aren’t so rosy. I can’t find the satellite dish; it probably got blown kilometers away.

The MAV is gone, of course. My crewmates took it up to Hermes.

Though the bottom half (the landing stage) is still there. No reason to take that back up when weight is the enemy. It includes the landing gear, the fuel plant, and anything else NASA figured it wouldn’t need for the trip back up to orbit.

The MDV is on its side and there’s a breach in the hull. Looks like the storm ripped the cowling off the reserve chute (which we didn’t have to use on landing). Once the chute was exposed it dragged the MDV all over the place, smashing it against every rock in the area. Not that the MDV would be much use to me. Its thrusters can’t even lift its own weight. But it might have been valuable for parts. Might still be. Both rovers are half-buried in sand, but one is torn to shit, the other is in good to great condition otherwise. The good rovers pressure seals are in-tact. Makes sense. Operating procedure if a storm hits is to stop motion and wait for the storm to pass. But one didn't do its fucking job.

They’re made to stand up to punishment. Again, one didn't do its fucking job. I’ll be able to dig them out with a day or so of work. Ill see if I can scavenge any parts from the fucked one.

I’ve lost communication with the weather stations, placed a kilometer away from the Hab in 4 directions. They might be in perfect working order for all I know. The Hab’s communications are so weak right now it probably can’t even reach a kilometer.

The solar cell array was covered it in sand, rendering it useless (hint: solar cells need sunlight to make electricity). But once I swept them off, they returned to full efficiency. Whatever I end up doing, I’ll have plenty of power for it. 200 square meters of solar cells, with hydrogen fuel cells to store plenty of reserve. All I need to do is sweep them off every few days.

Things indoors are great, thanks to the Hab’s sturdy design.

I ran a full diagnostic on the Oxygenator. Twice. It’s perfect. If anything goes wrong with it, there is a short-term spare I can use. But it’s solely for emergency use while repairing the main one. The spare doesn’t actually pull CO2 apart and recapture the oxygen. It just absorbs the CO2 the same way the spacesuits do. It’s intended to last 5 days before it saturates the filters, which means 30 days for me (just one person breathing, instead of six). So there’s some insurance there.

The Water Reclaimer is working fine, too. The bad news is there’s no backup. If it stops working, I’ll be drinking reserve water while I rig up a primitive distillery to boil piss. Also, I’ll lose half a liter of water per day to breathing until the humidity in the Hab reaches its maximum and water starts condensing on every surface. Then I’ll be licking the walls. Yay.

Anyway, for now, no problems with the Water Reclaimer.

So yeah. Food, water, shelter all taken care of. I’m going to start rationing food right now. Meals are pretty minimal already, but I think I can eat a 3/4 portion per meal and still be all right. That should turn my 300 days of food in to 400. Foraging around the medical area, I found the main bottle of vitamins. There’s enough multivitamins there to last years. So I won’t have any nutritional problems (though I’ll still starve to death when I’m out of food, no matter how many vitamins I take).

The medical area has morphine for emergencies. And there’s enough there for a lethal dose. I’m not going to slowly starve to death, I’ll tell  
you that. If I get to that point, I’ll take an easier way out.

Everyone on the mission had two specialties. I’m a botanist and mechanical engineer. Basically, I was the mission’s fix-it gal who played with plants. The mechanical engineering might save my life if something breaks.

I’ve been thinking about how to survive this. It’s not completely hopeless. There’ll be humans back on Mars in about four years when Ares 4 arrives (assuming they didn’t cancel the program in the wake of my “death”).

Ares 4 will be landing at the Schiaparelli Crater, which is about 3,200km away from my location here in the Acidalia Planitia. No way for me to get there on my own. But if I could communicate, I might be able to get a rescue. Not sure how they’d manage that with the resources on hand, but NASA has a lot of smart people.

So that’s my mission now. Find a way to communicate with Earth. If I can’t manage that, find a way to communicate with Hermes when it returns in 4 years with the Ares 4 crew.

Of course, I don’t have any plan for surviving 4 years on 1 year of food. But one thing at a time here. For now, I’m well fed and have a purpose: “Fix the damn radio”

She chuckled," Clarke Griffin signing off."

Clarke stood from the chair and stretched, with a grin. " Lets go through my space mates shit." She laughed. She whistled a tune as she walked towards Lexa's sleeping chamber.

Clarke crouched," Seriously Lexa, only that shit music you always listen to? Tsk Tsk."


	3. Chapter 3

The Martian Au :)

 

\------------------------------  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 10

" Fuck it, you know what? Since basically maybe nobody will see this shit, I will give you the juicy shit." " Me and Lexa are like secretly dating because ' you can't date a crew member' I don't really know how that affects-Okay I do know how that would affect the significant other." " Fuck, Lexa must feel like shit right now." " Fuck." " No like really fuck you god, come at me bro."

" Okay enough messing around, Well, I’ve done three EVAs and haven’t found any hint of the communication dish.

I dug out one of the rovers and had a good drive around, but after days of wandering I think it’s time to give up. The storm probably blew the dish far away and then erased any drag-marks or scuffs that might have led to a trail. Probably buried it, too. I spent most of today out at what’s left of the communication array. It’s really a sorry sight. I may as well yell toward Earth for all the good that damned thing will do me.

I could throw together a rudimentary dish out of metal I find around the base, but this isn’t some walkie-talkie I’m working with here.

Communicating from Mars to Earth is a pretty big deal, and requires extremely specialized equipment. I won’t be able to whip something up with tinfoil and gum.

I need to ration my EVAs as well as food. The CO2 filters are not cleanable. Once they’re saturated, they’re done. The mission accounted for a 4-hour EVA per crewmember per day. Fortunately, CO2 filters are light and small so NASA had the luxury of sending more than we needed.

All told, I have about 1500 hours worth of CO2 filters. After that, any EVAs I do will have to be managed with bloodletting the air. 1500 hours may sound like a lot, but I’m faced with spending at least 4 years here if I’m going to have any hope of rescue, with a minimum of several hours per week dedicated to sweeping off the solar array.  
Anyway. No needless EVAs.

In other news, I’m starting to come up with an idea for food. My botany background may come in useful after all. Why bring a botanist to Mars? After all, it’s famous for not having anything growing here. Well, the idea was to figure out how well things grow in Martian gravity, and see what, if anything, we can do with Martian soil. The short answer is: quite a lot... almost. Martian soil has the basic building blocks needed for plant growth, but there’s a lot of stuff going on in Earth soil that Mars soil doesn’t have, even when it’s placed in an Earth-atmosphere and given plenty of water. Bacterial activity, certain nutrients provided by animal life, etc. None of that is happening on Mars. One of my tasks for the mission was to see how plants grow here, in various combinations of Earth or Mars soil and atmosphere.

That’s why I have a small amount of Earth soil and a bunch of plant seeds with me. I can’t get too excited, however. It’s about the amount of soil you’d put in a window planter-box, and the only seeds I have are a few species of grass and ferns. They’re the most rugged and easily grown plants on earth, so NASA picked them as the test subjects.

So I have two problems: not enough dirt, and nothing edible to plant in it.

But I’m a botanist, damn it. I should be able to find a way to make this happen. If I don’t, I’ll be a really hungry botanist in about a year."  
\----------------------------------------------------  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 11  
"I wonder if they came up with a new icecream and I'm missing out."  
\----------------------------------------------------

LOG ENTRY: SOL 14  
"I got my undergrad degree at the University of Chicago. Half the people who studied botany were hippies who thought they could return to some natural world system. Somehow feeding 7 billion people through pure gathering. They spent most of their time working out better ways to grow pot. I didn’t like them. I’ve always been in it for the science, not for any New World Order bullshit.

When they made compost heaps and tried to conserve every little ounce of living matter, I laughed at them. “Look at the silly hippies!” I would scoff. “Look at their pathetic attempts to simulate a complex global ecosystem in their back yard.”

Of course now I’m doing exactly that. I’m saving every scrap of biomatter I can find. Every time I finish a meal, the leftovers go to the compost bucket. As for other biological material...

The Hab has sophisticated toilets. Shit is usually vaccum-dried, then accumulated in sealed bags to be discarded on the surface.  
Not any more!

In fact, I even did an EVA to recover the previous bags of shit from before the crew left. Being completely desiccated, this particular shit didn’t have bacteria in it anymore, but it still had complex proteins and would serve as useful manure. Adding it to water and active bacteria would quickly get it inundated, replacing any population killed by the Toilet Of Doom.

I found a big container and filled it with a bit of water, then added the dried shit. Since then, I’ve added my own shit to it as well. The worse it smells, the more successful things are going. That’s the bacteria at work! Once I get some Martian soil in here, I can mix in the shit and spread it out. Then I can sprinkle the Earth soil on top. You might not think that would be an important step, but it is. There are dozens of species of bacteria living in Earth soil, and they're critical to plant growth. They'll spread out and breed like... well, like a bacterial infection..

Within a week, the Martian soil will be ready for plants to germinate in. But I won’t plant yet. I’ll spread it out over a doubled area. It’ll “infect” the new Martian soil. 

After another week, I’ll double it again.

And so on. Of course, all the while, I’ll be adding all new manure to the effort. 

Now Lexa, Lincoln, Octavia, Raven, Anya, and Bellamy can officially say they helped me survive. Thank you for your shit guys!

My asshole is doing as much to keep me alive as my brain.

This isn’t a new concept I just came up with. People have speculated on how to make crop soil out of Martian dirt for decades. I’ll just be putting it to the test for the first time.

I searched through the food supplies and found all sorts of things that I can plant. Peas, for instance. Plenty of beans, too. I also found several potatoes. If *any* of them can still germinate after their ordeal, that’ll be great. With a nearly infinite supply of vitamins, all I need are calories of any kind to survive.

The total floor-space of the Hab is about 92 square meters. I plan to dedicate all of it to this endeavor. I don’t mind walking on dirt. It’ll be a lot of work, but I’m going to need to cover the entire floor to a depth of 10 cm. That means I’ll have to transport 9.2 cubic meters of Martian soil in to the Hab. I can get maybe 1/10th of a cubic meter in through the airlock at a time, and it’ll be backbreaking work to collect it. But in the end, if everything goes to plan, I’ll have 92 square meters of croppable soil.  
Hell yeah I’m a botanist! Fear my botany powers."

" Clarke Griffin signing off."


	4. Chapter 4

The Martian Au :)

======================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 15  
"Ugh! This is backbreaking work!  
I spent 12 hours today on EVAs to bring dirt in to the Hab. I only managed to cover a small corner of the base, maybe 5 square meters. At this rate it’ll take me weeks to get all the soil in. But hey, time is one thing I’ve got.

The first few EVAs were pretty inefficient; me filling small containers and bringing them in through the airlock. Then I got wise and just put one big container in the airlock itself and filled that with small containers till it was full. That sped things up a lot because the airlock takes about 10 minutes to get through.

I ache all over. And the shovels I have are made for taking samples, not heavy digging. My back is killing me. I foraged in the medical supplies and found some Vicodin. I took it about 10 minutes ago. Should be kicking in soon. 

Anyway, it’s nice to see progress. Time to start getting the bacteria to work on these minerals. After lunch. No 3/4 ration today. I’ve earned a full meal."  
======================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 16  
"One complication I hadn’t though of: Water. 

Turns out being on the surface of Mars for a few million years eliminates all the water in the soil. My master’s degree in botany makes me pretty sure plants need wet dirt to grow in. Not to mention the bacteria that has to live in it first. Fortunately, I have water. But not as much as I want. To be viable, soil needs 40 liters of water per cubic meter. My overall plan calls for 9.2 cubic meters of soil. So I’ll eventually need 368 liters of water to feed it.

The Hab has an excellent Water Reclaimer. Best technology available on Earth. So NASA figured “why send a lot of water up there? Just send enough for an emergency.” Humans need 3 liters of water per day to be comfortable. They gave us 50 liters each. There are 300 liters total in the Hab.

Looks like I won’t be able to cover the whole surface of the Hab with fertile soil. I’m willing to dedicate all but an emergency 50 liters to the cause. That means I can feed 62.5 square meters at a depth of 10cm. 

About 2/3 of the Hab’s floor. It’ll have to do. Anyway, I’ve only got a paltry 5 square meters covered at the moment.

After that, things got disgusting. I spent three hours spreading shit on Martian sand. I didn’t have to do it with my hands, at least. I spread the sand out in a corner of the Hab, about 10cm thick. I wadded up a few blankets and uniforms from my departed crewmates to serve as one edge of a planter box (with the curved walls of the Hab being the rest of the perimeter). Then I sacrificed 20 liters of precious water to the dirt gods.  
5 square meters was about right for the amount of manure I had handy. I dumped my big container o’ shit on to the soil and nearly puked from the smell.

That smell’s going to stick around for a while, too. It’s not like I can open a window. Still, you get used to it. I mixed this soil and shit together with a shovel, and spread it out evenly again. Then I sprinkled the Earth soil on top. Get to work, bacteria. I’m counting on you.

In other news, today is Thanksgiving. My family will be gathering in Chicago for the usual feast at my parent's house. My guess is it won't be much fun, what with me having died 11 days ago. Hell, they probably just got done gathering for my funeral.

I wonder if they'll ever find out what really happened."  
======================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 22  
"Wow. Things really came along.

I got all the sand in and ready to go. 2/3 of the base is now dirt. And today I executed my first dirt-doubling. It's been a week, and the former Martian soil was rich and lovely. Two more doublings and I will have covered the whole field. All that work was great for my morale. It gave me something to do.  
But after things settled down a bit, and I had dinner while listening to Johanssen’s Beatles music collection, I got depressed again.

Doing the math, this won’t keep me from starving. My best bet for making calories is potatoes. They grow prolifically and have a reasonable caloric content (770 calories per kg). I’m pretty sure the ones I have will germinate. Problem is I can’t grow enough of them. In 62 square meters, I could grow maybe 150kg of potatoes in 400 days (the time I have before running out of food). That’s a grand total of 115,500 calories, a sustainable average of 288 calories per day. 

With my height and weight, if I’m willing to starve a little, I need 1500 calories per day.  
Not even close.

So I can’t just live off the land for ever. But I can extend my life. The potatoes will last me 76 days.

Potatoes grow continually, so in those 76 days, I can grow another 22,000 calories of potatoes, which will tide me over for another 15 days.  
After that, it’s kind of pointless to continue the trend. All told it buys me about 90 days.

So now I’ll start starving to death on Sol 490 instead of Sol 400. It’s progress, but any hope of survival rests on me surviving until Sol 1412,

when Ares 4 will land.

There’s about a thousand days of food I don’t have. And I don’t have a plan for how to get it.

Fuck my life."

"Clarke Griffin fucking signing off."


	5. Chapter 5

The Martian Au :)

 

=====================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 25  
"Remember those old math questions you had in Algebra class? Where water is entering a container at a certain rate and leaving at a different rate and you need to figure out when it’ll be empty? Well, that concept is critical to the “Clarke Griffin doesn’t die” project I’m working on.

I need to create calories. And I need enough to last four years. I figure if I don’t get rescued by Ares 4, I’m dead anyway. So that’s my target: four years.

I have plenty of multivitamins; over double what I need. And there’s five times the minimum protein in each food pack, so careful rationing of portions takes care of my protein needs for at least four years. My general nutrition is taken care of. I just need calories.

I need 1500 calories every day. I have 400 days of food to start off with. So how many calories do I need to generate per day along the entire time period to stay alive for 1400 days total (the time till Ares 4 arrives)?

I’ll spare you the math. The answer is a cool 1000. I need to create 1000 calories per day with my farming efforts to survive until Ares 4 gets here. Actually, a little more than that, because it’s sol 25 right now and I haven’t actually planted anything yet.

With my 62 square meters of farmland, I’ll be able to create about 288 calories per day. I need to bring that up to 1000. I need four times my current plan’s production to survive.

I need more surface area for farming, and I need water to hydrate the soil. So let’s take the problems one at a time.

How much farmland can I really make?

There are 92 square meters in the Hab. Let’s say I could make use of all of it.

Also, there are five unused bunks. Let’s say I put soil in on them, too.

They’re 2 square meters each, giving me 10 more square meters. So we’re up to 102.

The Hab has three lab tables, each about 2 square meters. I want to keep one for my own use, leaving two for the cause. That’s another four square meters, bringing the total to 106.

I have one working rover. It has pressure seals, allowing the  
occupants to drive in ease, without spacesuits, as they spent long periods  
traversing the surface. They’re too cramped to plant crops in, and I want to be able to drive it around anyway. But both rovers have an  
emergency pop-tent. I have to see if the fucked rover still has one intact.

There are a lot of problems with using pop-tents as farmland, but they have 10 square meters of floor space each. Presuming I can overcome the problems, they net me another 20 square meters, bringing my farmland up to 126. 

126 square meters of farmable land. That’s something to work with. 

Not nearly enough water to moisten the soil, but like I said, one thing at a  
time.

The next thing to consider is how efficient I can be in growing potatoes. I based my crop yield estimates on the potato industry back on Earth. But potato farmers aren’t in a desperate race for survival like I am.

Can I get a better yield?

For starters, I can give attention to each individual plant. I can trim them and keep them healthy and not interfering with each other. Also, as their flowering bodies breach the surface, I can replant them deeper, then plant younger plants above them. For normal potato farmers, it’s not worth doing because they’re working with literally millions of potato plants.

Also, this sort of farming annihilates the soil. Any farmer doing it would turn their land into a dust bowl within 12 years. It’s not sustainable. But who gives a shit? I just need to survive four years.

I estimate I can get 50% higher yield by using these tactics. And with the 126 square meter farmland (just over double the 62 square meters I have) it works out to be over 900 calories per day.

That’s real progress. I’d still be in danger of starvation, but it gets me in the range of survival. I might be able to make it by nearly starving but not quite dying. I could reduce my caloric use by minimizing manual labor. I could set the temperature of the Hab higher than normal, meaning my body expends less energy keeping its temperature. I could cut off an arm and eat it, gaining me valuable calories and reducing my overall caloric need.

No, not really.  
So let’s say I could clear up that much farmland. Seems reasonable.

Where do I get the water? To go from 62 to 126 square meters of farmland at 10cm deep, I’ll need 6.4 more cubic meters of soil (more shoveling, whee!) and that’ll need over 250 liters of water.

The 50L I have is for me to drink if the Water Reclaimer breaks. So I’m 250L short of my 250L goal.

Bleh. I’m going to bed

I'll do shit tomorrow.

" Clarke Griffin signing off to fucking sleep."


	6. Chapter 6

The Martian Au :)

 

================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 26  
"It was a back-breaking yet productive day.

I was sick of thinking, so instead of trying to figure out where I’ll get 250L of water, I did some manual labor. I need to get a whole assload more soil in to the Hab, even if it is dry and useless right now.

I got a cubic meter in before getting exhausted.

Then, a minor dust-storm dropped by for an hour and covered the solar collectors with crap. So I had to suit up *again* and do *another* EVA. I was in a pissy mood the whole time. Sweeping off a huge field of solar cells is boring and physically demanding. But once the job was done, I came back to my Little Hab on the Prairie.

It was about time for another dirt-doubling, so I figured I may as well get it over with. It took an hour. One more doubling and the usable soil will all be good to go.

Also, I figured it was time to start up a seed crop. I’d doubled the soil enough that I could afford to leave a little corner of it alone. I had 12 potatoes to work with.

I am one lucky son-of-a-bitch they aren’t freeze-dried or mulched.

Why did NASA send 12 whole potatoes, refrigerated but not frozen? And why send them along with us as in-pressure cargo rather than in a crate with the rest of the Hab supplies? Because Thanksgiving was going to happen while we were doing surface operations, and NASA’s shrinks thought it would be good to make a meal together. Not just to eat it, but to actually prepare it. There’s probably some logic to that, but who cares?

I cut each potato in to 4 pieces, making sure each piece had at least 2 eyes. The eyes are where they sprout from. I let them sit for a few hours to harden a bit, then planted them, well spaced apart, in the corner. God speed, little taters. My life depends on you.

Normally, it takes 90 days to yield full sized potatoes. But I can’t wait that long. I’ll need to cut up all the potatoes from this crop to seed the rest of the field.

By setting the Hab temperature to a balmy 25.5C, the plants will grow quicker. Also, the internal lights will provide plenty of “sunlight” and I’ll make sure they get lots of water (once I figure out where to get water). 

There will be no foul weather, or any parasites to hassle them, or any weeds to compete with for soil or nutrients. With all this going for them, they should yield healthy, sproutable tubers within 40 days.

I figured that was enough being Farmer Mark for one day.

A full meal for dinner. I’d earned it. Plus, I’d burned a ton of calories and I wanted them back.

I rifled through Ravens stuff until I found her personal data-stick. Everyone got to bring whatever digital entertainment they wanted, and I was tired of listening to Johanssen’s Beatles Albums for now. Time to see what Raven had.

Crappy TV shows. That’s what she had. Countless entire runs of TV shows from forever ago.

Well. Beggars can’t be choosers. “Three’s Company” it is."  
=================================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 29  
"Over the last few days, I got all the dirt in that I’d need. I prepped the tables and bunks for holding the weight of soil, and even put the dirt in place. There’s still no water to make it viable, but I have some ideas.

Really bad ideas, but they’re ideas.

Today’s big accomplishment was setting up the pop-tents.

The problem with the rovers’ pop-tents is they weren’t designed for  
frequent use.

The idea was you’d throw out a pop-tent, get in, and wait for rescue.

The airlock is nothing more than valves and two doors. Equalize the airlock with your side of it, get in. equalize with the other side, get out.  
This means you lose a lot of air each use. And I’ll need to get in there at least once a day. The total volume of each pop tent is pretty low, so I can’t afford to lose air from it.

I spent *hours* trying to figure out how to attach a pop-tent airlock to a Hab airlock. I have three airlocks in the Hab. I’d be willing to dedicate two to pop-tents. 

That would have been awesome.

The frustrating part is pop-tent airlocks *can* attach to other airlocks! You might have injured people in there, or not enough space suits. You need to be able to get people out without exposing them to the Martian atmosphere.But the pop-tents were designed for your crewmates to come rescue you in a *rover*. The airlocks on the Hab are much larger and completely different than the airlocks on the rovers. When you think about it, there’s really no reason to attach a pop-tent to the Hab.

Unless you’re stranded on Mars and everyone thinks you’re dead and you’re in a desperate fight against time and the elements to stay alive.

But, you know, other than that edge case there’s no reason.

So I finally decided I’d just take the hit. I’ll be losing some air every time I enter or exit a pop-tent. The good news is each pop-tent has an air  
feed valve on the outside. Remember, these are emergency shelters. The occupants might need air, and you can provide it from a rover by hooking up an air line. It’s nothing more than a tube that equalizes the rover’s air with the pop-tent’s.

The Hab and the rovers use the same valve and tubing standards, so I was able to attach the pop tents directly to the Hab. That'll automatically replenish the air I lose with my entries and exits (what we NASA folk call ingress and egress). 

NASA was not fucking around with these emergency tents. The moment I pushed the panic button in the rover, there was an ear-popping whoosh as the pop-tent fired out, attached to the rover airlock. It took about two seconds.

I closed the airlock from the rover side and ended up with a nice, isolated pop-tent. Setting up the equalizer hose was trivial (for once I’m using equipment the way it was designed to be used). Then, after a few trips through the airlock (with the air-loss automatically equalized by the Hab) I got the dirt in.

I repeated the process for the other tent. Everything went really easily.

Sigh... water.

In high school, I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. (You may not have guessed this Botanist / Mechanical Engineer was a bit of a nerd in high school, but indeed I was). In the game I played a Cleric. One of the magic spells I could cast was “Create Water”. I always thought it was a really stupid spell, and it never came up. Boy what I wouldn’t give to be  
able to do that in real life right now.

Anyway. That’s a problem for tomorrow.

For tonight, I have to get back to “Three’s Company.” I stopped last night in the middle of the episode where Mr. Roper saw something and took it out of context."

" Clarke Griffin signing off."


	7. Chapter 7

The Space Martian Au :)

 

======================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 30  
"I have an idiotically dangerous plan for getting the water I need. And boy do I mean *dangerous*. But I don’t have much choice. I’m out of ideas and I’m due for another dirt-doubling in a few days. When I do the final doubling, I’ll be doubling on to all that new soil I’ve brought in. If I don’t wet it first, it’ll just die. 

There isn’t a lot of water here on Mars. There’s ice at the poles, but they’re too far away. If I want water I’ll have to make it from scratch. Fortunately, I know the recipe: Take hydrogen. Add oxygen. Burn.

Let’s take them one at a time. I’ll start with oxygen.

I have a fair bit of O2 reserves, but not enough to make 250 liters of water. Two high-pressure tanks at one end of the Hab are my entire supply (plus the air in the Hab of course). They each contain 25 liters of liquid O2. The Hab would only use them in an emergency; it has the Oxygenator to balance the atmosphere. The reason the O2 tanks are here is to feed the spacesuits and rovers.

Anyway, the reserve oxygen would only be enough to make 100L of water (50L of O2 makes 100L of molecules that only have one O each).

That would mean no EVAs for me, and no emergency reserves. And it would make less than half the water I need. Out of the question.

But oxygen’s easier to find on Mars than you might think. The atmosphere is 98% CO2. And I happen to have a machine whose sole purpose is liberating oxygen from CO2. Yay Oxygenator!

One problem: The atmosphere is very thin. About 1/90th the pressure on Earth. So it’s hard to collect. Getting air from outside to inside is nearly impossible. The whole purpose of the Hab is to keep that sort of thing from happening. The tiny amount of Martian atmosphere that enters when I use an airlock is laughable.

That’s where the MAV fuel plant comes in.

My crewmates took the MAV away weeks ago. But the bottom half of it stayed behind. NASA is not in the habit of putting unnecessary shit in to orbit. It left the landing gear, ingress ramp, and fuel plant behind.

Remember how the MAV made its own fuel with help from the Martian atmosphere? Step one of that is to collect CO2 and store it in a high pressure vessel. Once I get that hooked up to the Hab’s power, it’ll give me half a liter of liquid CO2 per hour, indefinitely. After 5 days it’ll have made 125L of CO2, which will make 125L of O2 after I feed it through the Oxygenator.

That’s enough to make 250L of water. So I have a plan for oxygen.

The hydrogen will be a little trickier.

I considered raiding the hydrogen fuel-cells, but I need those batteries to maintain power at night. If I don’t have that, It’ll get too cold. I could bundle up, but the cold would kill my crops. And each fuel cell only has a small amount of H2 anyway. It’s just not worth sacrificing so much usefulness for so little gain. The one thing I have going for me is that energy is not a problem. I don’t want to give that up. 

So I’ll have to go a different route.

I often talk about the MAV. But now I want to talk about the MDV. During the most terrifying 23 minutes of my life, four of my crewmates and I tried not to shit ourselves while Martinez piloted the MDV down to the surface. It was kind of like being in a tumble-dryer. 

First, we descended from Hermes, and decelerated our orbital velocity so we could start falling properly. Everything was smooth until we hit the atmosphere. If you think turbulence is rough in a jetliner going 720kph, just imagine what it’s like at 28,000kph. 

Several staged sets of chutes deployed automatically to slow our descent, then Lincoln manually piloted us to the ground, using the thrusters to slow descent and control our lateral motion. He’d trained for this for years, and he did his job extraordinarily well. He exceeded all plausible expectations of landings, putting us just nine meters from the target. The guy just plain owned that landing.

Thanks, Lincoln! You may have saved my life!  
N  
ot because of the perfect landing, but because he left so much fuel behind. Hundreds of liters of unused Hydrazine. Each molecule of Hydrazine has four hydrogen atoms in it. So each liter of Hydrazine has enough hydrogen for *two* liters of water.

I did a little EVA today to check. The MDV has 292L of juice left in the tanks. Enough to make a almost 600L of water! Way more than I need!

There’s just one catch: Liberating hydrogen from Hydrazine is... well... it's how rockets work. It’s really, really hot. And dangerous. If I do it in an oxygen atmosphere, the heat and newly liberated hydrogen will explode. There’ll be a lot of H2O at the end, but I’ll be too dead to appreciate it.

At its root, Hydrazine is pretty simple. The Germans used it as far back as World War II for rocket-assisted fighter fuel (and occasionally blew themselves up with it).

All you have to do is run it over a catalyst (which I can extract from the MDV engine) and it will turn in to nitrogen and hydrogen. I’ll spare you the chemistry, but the end result is that 5 molecules of Hydrazine becomes 5 molecules of harmless N2 and 10 molecules of lovely H2.

During this process, it goes through an intermediate step of being ammonia. Chemistry, being the sloppy bitch it is, ensures there’ll be some ammonia that doesn’t react with the Hydrazine, so it’ll just stay ammonia. You like the smell of ammonia? Well it’ll be prevalent in my increasingly hellish existence.

The chemistry is on my side. The question now is how do I actually make this reaction happen slowly and how do I collect the hydrogen? The answer is: I don’t know.

I suppose I’ll think of something. Or die.

Anyway, much more important: I simply can’t abide the replacement of Chrissie with Cindy. “Three’s Company” may never be the same after  
this fiasco. 

Time will tell."  
========================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 32  
"So I ran in to a bunch of problems with my water plan.

My idea is to make 600L of water (limited by the hydrogen I can get from the Hydrazine). That means I’ll need 300L of liquid O2.

I can create the O2 easily enough. It takes 20 hours for the MAV fuel plant to fill its 10L tank with CO2. The Oxygenator can turn it in to O2, then the Atmospheric 

Regulator will see the O2 content in the Hab is high, and pull it out of the air, storing it in the main O2 tanks. They’d fill up, so I’d have to transfer O2 over to the rovers’ tanks and even space suit tanks as necessary.

But I can’t create it very quickly. At 1/2L of CO2 per hour, it will take 25 days to make the oxygen I need. That’s longer than I’d like.

Also, there’s the problem of storing the hydrogen. The air tanks of the Hab, the rovers, and all the space suits add up to exactly 374L of storage.

To hold all the materials for water, I would need a whopping 900L of  
storage.

I considered using one of the rovers as a “tank”. It would certainly be big enough, but it just isn’t designed to hold in that much pressure. It’s made to hold (you \ guessed it) one atmosphere. I need vessels that can hold 50 times that much. I’m sure a rover would burst.

The best way to store the ingredients of water is to make them be water. So what’s what I’ll have to do.

The concept is simple, but the execution will be incredibly dangerous.

Every 20 hours, I’ll have 10L of CO2 thanks to the MAV fuel plant. I’ll vent it in to the Hab via the highly scientific method of detaching the tank from the MAV landing struts, bringing it in to the Hab, then opening the valve until it’s empty.

The Oxygenator will turn it in to oxygen in its own time.

Then, I’ll release Hydrazine, VERY SLOWLY, over the iridium  
catalyst, to turn it in to N2 and H2. I’ll direct the hydrogen to a small area  
and burn it.

As you can see, this plan provides many opportunities for me to die in a fiery explosion.

Firstly, Hydrazine is some serious death. If I make any mistakes, there’ll be nothing left but the “Clarke Griffin Memorial Crater” where  
the Hab once stood.

Presuming I don’t fuck up with the Hydrazine, there’s still the matter of burning hydrogen. I’m going to be setting a fire. In the Hab. On purpose.

If you asked every engineer at NASA what the worst scenario for the Hab was, they’d all answer “fire.” If you asked them what the result would be, they’d answer “death by fire.”

But if I can pull it off, I’ll be making water continuously, with no need to store hydrogen or oxygen. It’ll be mixed in to the atmosphere as humidity, but the Water Reclaimer will pull it out.

I don’t even have to perfectly match the Hydrazine end of it with the fuel plant CO2 part. There’s plenty of oxygen in the Hab, and plenty more in reserve. I just need to make sure not to make so much water I run myself out of O2.

I hooked up the MAV fuel plant to the Hab’s power supply.

Fortunately they both use the same voltage. It’s chugging away, collecting CO2 for me.

Half-ration for dinner. All I accomplished today was thinking up a plan that’ll kill me, and that doesn’t take much energy.

I’m going to finish off the last of “Three’s Company” tonight.

Frankly, I like Mr. Furley more than the Ropers."

" Clarke Griffin signing off."


	8. Chapter 8

The Martian Au :)

 

============================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 33  
"This may be my last entry.

I’ve known since Sol 6 there was a good chance I’d die here. But I figured it would be when I ran out of food. I didn’t think it would be this early.

I’m about the fire up the Hydrazine.

Our mission was designed knowing that anything might need maintenance, so I have plenty of tools. Even in a space-suit, I was able to pry the access panels off the MDV and get at the six Hydrazine tanks. I set them in the shadow of a rover to keep them from heating up too much.

There’s more shade and a cooler temperature near the Hab, but fuck that.

If they’re going to blow up, they can blow up a rover, not my house.

Then I pried out the reaction chamber. It took some work and I cracked the damn thing in half, but I got it out. Lucky for me I don’t need a proper fuel reaction. In fact, I really, super-duper don’t want a proper fuel reaction.

I brought all the Hydrazine and reaction chamber in. I briefly considered only having one tank in at a time to reduce risk. But some back-of-the-napkin math told me even one tank was enough to blow the whole Hab up, so why not bring them all in?

The tanks have manual vent valves. I’m not 100% sure what they’re for. Certainly we were never expected to use them. I think they’re there to release pressure during the many quality checks done during construction and before fueling. Whatever the reason, I have valves to work with. All it takes is a wrench.

I liberated a spare water hose from the Water Reclaimer. With some thread torn out of a uniform (Sorry, Octavia), I attached it to the valve output. Hydrazine is a liquid, so all I have to do is lead it to the reaction chamber (more of a “reaction bowl” now).

Meanwhile, the MAV fuel plant is still working. I’ve already brought in one tank of CO2, vented it, and returned it for refilling.

So there are no more excuses. It’s time to start making water.

If you find the charred remains of the Hab, it means I did something wrong. I’m copying this log over to the rover so it’s more likely it’ll  
survive.  
Here goes nothin'"  
================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 33 (2)  
"Well, I didn’t die.

First thing I did was put on the inner lining of my EVA suit. Not the bulky suit itself, just the inner clothing I wear under it, including the gloves and booties. Then I got an oxygen mask from the medical supplies and some lab goggles from Vogel's chem kit. Almost all of my body was now protected and I would be breathing canned air.

Why? Because Hydrazine is very toxic. If I breathe too much of it I'll get major lung problems. If I get it on my skin, I'll have chemical burns for the rest of my life. I wasn't taking any chances.

I turned the valve until a trickle of Hydrazine came out. I let one drop fall in to the iridium bowl.

It un-dramatically sizzled and disappeared.

But hey, that’s what I wanted. I just freed up hydrogen and nitrogen.

Yay!

One thing I have in abundance here is bags. They’re not much different than kitchen trash bags, though I’m sure they cost $50,000 because NASA.

In addition to being our commander, Raven was also the geologist.

She was going to collect rock and soil samples from all over the operational area (10 km radius). Weight limits restricted how much she could actually bring back, so she was going to collect first, then sort out the most interesting 50kg to take home. The bags are to store and tag the samples. Some are smaller than a Ziploc, while others are as big as a Hefty lawn and leaf bag.

Also, I have duct tape. Ordinary duct tape, like you buy at a hardware store. Turns out even NASA can’t improve on duct tape. 

I cut up a few Hefty sized bags and taped them together to make a sort of tent. Really it was more of a super-sized bag. I was able to cover the whole table where my Hydrazine mad scientist set-up was. I put a few knickknacks on the table to keep the plastic out of the iridium bowl.

Thankfully, the bags are clear, so I can still see what’s going on.

Next, I sacrificed a spacesuit to the cause. I needed an air hose. I have a surplus of space suits, after all. A total of seven; one for each crewmember and one spare. So I don’t mind murdering one of them.

I cut a hole in the top of the plastic and duct taped the hose in place.

Nice seal, I think.

With some more string from Johannsen’s clothing, I hung the other end of the hose from the top of the Hab's dome by two angled threads (to keep them well clear of the hose opening). Now I had a little chimney. The hose was about 1cm wide. Hopefully a good aperture. The hydrogen will be hot after the reaction, and it'll want to go up. So I’ll let it go up the chimney, then burn it as it comes out.

Then I had to invent fire.

NASA put a lot of effort in to making sure nothing here can burn. Everything is made of metal or flame retardant plastic and the uniforms are synthetic. I needed something that could hold a flame, some kind of pilot light. I don't have the skills to keep enough H2 flowing to feed a flame without killing myself. Too narrow a margin there.

After a search of everyone’s personal items (hey, if they wanted privacy, they shouldn’t have abandoned me on Mars with their stuff) I found my answer.  
Lincoln is a devout catholic. I knew that. What I didn’t know was he brought along a small wooden cross. I’m sure NASA gave him shit about it, but I also know Lincoln is one stubborn son-of-a-bitch.

I chipped his sacred religious item into long splinters using a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. I figure if there’s a God, He won’t mind, considering the situation I’m in.

Ruining the only religious icon I have leaves me vulnerable to Mars Vampires. I’ll have to risk it.

There were plenty of wires and batteries around to make a spark. But you can’t just ignite wood with a small electric spark. So I collectedribbons of bark from local palm trees, then got a couple of sticks and rubbed them together to create enough friction to...

No not really. I vented pure oxygen at the stick and gave it a spark.

Fucker lit up like a match.

With my mini-torch in hand, I started a slow Hydrazine flow. It sizzled on the iridium and disappeared. Soon I had short bursts of flame sputtering from the chimney.

The main thing I had watch was the temperature. Hydrazine breaking down is extremely exothermic. So I’d do it a bit at a time, constantly watching the readout of a thermocouple I’d attached to the iridium chamber.

Point is, the process worked!

Each Hydrazine tank holds a little over 50L, which would be enough to make 100L of water. I’m limited by my oxygen production, but I’m all excited now, so I'm willing to use half my reserves. Long story short, I’ll stop when the tank is half-empty, and I’ll have 50L or water at the end!"

" Clarke Griffin signing off."


	9. Chapter 9

The Martian Au :)

 

======================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 34  
"Well that took a really long time. I’ve been at it all night with the Hydrazine. But I got the job done.

I could have finished faster, but I figured caution’s best when setting fire to rocket fuel in an enclosed space.

Boy is this place a tropical jungle now, I’ll tell ya.

It’s almost 30C in here, and humid as all hell. I just dumped a ton of heat and 50L of water in to the air.

During this process, the poor Hab had to be the mother of a messy toddler. It’s been replacing the oxygen I’ve used, and the Water

Reclaimer is trying to get the humidity down to sane levels. Nothing to be done about the heat. There’s actually no air-conditioning in the Hab.

Mars is cold. Getting rid of excess heat isn’t something we expected to deal with.

I’ve now grown accustomed to the alarms that are blaring at all times. The fire alarm has finally stopped, now that there’s no more fire. The low oxygen alarm should stop soon. The high humidity alarm will take a little longer. The Water Reclaimer has its work cut out for it today. 

For a moment, there yet another alarm. The Water Reclaimer’s main tank was full. Booyah! That’s the kind of problem I want to have!

Remember the spacesuit I vandalized yesterday? I hung it on its rack and carried buckets of water to it from the reclaimer. It can hold an atmosphere of air in. It  
should be able to handle a few buckets of water.

Man I’m tired. Been up all night and it’s time to sleep. But I’ll drift off to dreamland in the best mood I’ve been in since Sol 6.

Things are finally going my way. In fact, they’re going great! I have a  
chance to live after all!"  
================================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 37  
"I am fucked and I’m gonna die!

Ok, calm down. I’m sure I can get around this.

I’m writing this log to you, dear future Mars archeologist, from Rover 2. You may wonder why I’m not in the Hab right now. Because I fled in terror, that’s why! And 

I’m not sure what the hell to do next.

I guess I should explain what happened. If this is my last entry, you’ll at least know why.

Over the past few days, I've been happily making water. It’s been going swimmingly. (See what I did there? “swimmingly”)

I even beefed up the MAV fuel plant compressor. It was very technical (I increased the voltage to the pump). So I’m making water even faster now.

After my initial burst of 50L, I decided to settle down and just make it  
at the rate I get O2. I’m not willing to go below a 25L reserve. So when I  
dip too low, I stop dicking with Hydrazine until I get the O2 back up to well above 25L.

Important note: When I say I made 50L of water, that was an assumption. I didn’t *reclaim* 50L of water. The additional soil I’d filled the Hab with was extremely dry and greedily sucked up a lot of the humidity. That’s where I want the water to go anyway, so I’m not worried, and I wasn’t surprised when the reclaimer didn’t get anywhere near 50L.

I get 10L of CO2 every 15 hours now that I souped up the pump. 

I’ve done this process four times. My math tells me that, including my initial 50L burst, I should have 130L of water added to the system.

Well my math is a damn liar!

I’ve gained 70L in the water regulator and the spacesuit-now- watertank. There’s plenty of condensation on the walls and domed roof, and the soil is certainly absorbing its fair share. But that doesn’t account for 60L of missing water. Something was wrong. That’s when I noticed the other O2 tank.

The Hab has two reserve O2 tanks. One on each side of the structure, for safety reasons. The Hab can decide which one to use whenever it wants. Turns out it’s been topping off the atmosphere from Tank 1. But when I add O2 to the system (via the Oxygenator), the Hab evenly  
distributes the gain among the two tanks. Tank 2 has been slowly gaining oxygen.

That’s not a problem, it’s just doing its job. But it does mean I’ve been gaining O2 over time. Which means I’m not consuming it as fast as I thought.

At first, I thought “Yay! More oxygen! Now I can make water faster!” But then a more disturbing thought occurred to me.

Follow my logic: I’m gaining O2. But the amount I’m bringing in from outside is constant. So the only way to “gain” it is to be using less than I thought. But I’ve been doing the Hydrazine reaction with the assumption that I was using all of it.

The only possible explanation is I haven’t been burning all the released hydrogen. It’s obvious now, in retrospect. But it never occurred to me that some of the hydrogen just wouldn’t burn. It got past the flame, and went on its merry way. Dammit, God, I’m a botanist, not a chemist!

Chemistry is messy, so there's unburned Hydrogen in the air. All around me. Mixed in with the oxygen. Just... hanging out. Waiting for a spark so it can  
blow the fucking Hab up!

Once I figured this out, and composed myself, I got a Ziploc-sized sample bag and waved it around a bit, then sealed it.  
Then, a quick EVA to a rover, where we keep the atmospheric analyzers. Nitrogen: 22%. Oxygen: 9%. Hydrogen: 64%.

I’ve been hiding here in the rover ever since.

It’s Hydrogenville in the Hab.  
I’m very lucky it hasn’t blown. Even a small static discharge would have led to “Oh the humanity!”

So, I’m here in the Rover. I can stay for a day or two, tops, before the CO2 filters from the rover and my spacesuit fill up. I have that long to figure out how to deal with this.  
The Hab is now a bomb.

Fuck.

" Clarke Griffin signing off, and Lexa If I died and you find this. God fucked me over."


	10. Chapter 10

The Martian Au :)

 

==================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 38  
"I’m still cowering in the rover, but I’ve had time to think. And I know how to deal with the hydrogen.

I thought about the Atmospheric Regulator. It pays attention to what’s in the air and balances it. That’s how the excess O2 I've been importing ends up in the tanks. 

Problem is, it’s just not built to pull hydrogen out of the air.

 

The regulator uses freeze-separation to sort out the gasses. When it decides there’s too much oxygen, it starts collecting air in a tank and cooling it to 90 kelvin. 

That makes the oxygen turn to liquid, but leaves the nitrogen (condensation point: 77K) still gaseous. Then it stores the O2.

But I can’t get it to do that for hydrogen, because hydrogen needs to be below 21K to turn liquid. And the regulator just can’t get temperatures that low. Dead end.

Here’s the solution:

Hydrogen is dangerous because it can blow up. But it can only blow up if there’s oxygen around. Hydrogen without oxygen is harmless. And the regulator is all about pulling oxygen out of the air.

There are four different safety interlocks that prevent the regulator from letting the Hab’s oxygen content get too low. But they’re designed to work against technical faults, not deliberate sabotage (bwa ha ha!).

Long story short, I can trick the regulator in to pulling all the oxygen out of the Hab. Then I can wear a spacesuit (so I can breathe) and do whatever I want without fear of blowing up. Yay!

I’ll use an O2 tank to spray short bursts of oxygen at the hydrogen, and make a spark with a couple of wires and a battery. It’ll set the hydrogen on fire, but only until the small bit of oxygen is used up.

I’ll just do that over and over, in controlled bursts, until I’ve burned off all the hydrogen.

One tiny flaw with that plan: It’ll kill my dirt.

The dirt is only viable soil because of the bacteria growing in it. If I  
get rid of all the oxygen, the bacteria will die. I don’t have 100 billion  
little spacesuits handy.

It’s half a solution anyway.

Time to take a break from thinking.

Commander Lexa (AKA My Girlfriend) was the last one to use this rover. She was scheduled to use it again on Sol 7, but she went home instead. Her personal travel kit’s still in the back. Rifling through it, I found a protein bar and a personal USB, probably full of music to listen to on the drive.

Time to chow down and see what the good Commander brought along for music, probably her shitty music (Sorry Lex).  
========================================  
LOG ENTRY SOL 38 (2)  
Disco. God damn it, Lexa, how do you listen to this shit?  
========================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 39  
Well I think I’ve got it.

Soil bacteria are used to winters. They get less active, and require less oxygen to survive. I can lower the Hab temperature to 1C, and they’ll nearly hibernate. This sort of thing happens on Earth all the time. They can survive a couple of days this way. If you’re wondering how bacteria survive long periods of cold on Earth, the answer is they don’t. Bacteria  
further underground where it was warmer breed upward to replace the dead ones.

They’ll still need some oxygen, but not much. I think a 1% content will do the trick. That leaves a little in the air for the bacteria to breathe, but not enough to maintain a fire. So the hydrogen won’t blow up.

But that leads to yet another problem. The potato plants won’t like the  
plan.

They don’t mind the lack of oxygen but the cold will kill them. So I’ll have to pot them (bag them, actually) and move them to a rover. They haven’t even sprouted yet, so it’s not like they need light.

It was surprisingly annoying to find a way to make the heat stay on when the rover’s unoccupied. But I figured it out. After all, I’ve got nothing but time in here.

So that’s the plan. First, bag the potato plants and bring them to the rover (make sure it keeps the damn heater on). Then drop the Hab to 1C. Then reduce to O2 content to 1%. Then burn off the hydrogen with a battery, some wires, and a tank of O2.

Yeah. This all sounds like a great idea with no chance of catastrophic failure.

That was sarcasm, by the way.

Well, off I go!"

===========================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 40  
"Things weren’t 100% successful.

They say no plan survives first contact with implementation. I’d have to agree. Here’s what happened: I summoned up the courage to return to the Hab. Once I got 

there, I felt a little more confident. Everything was how I’d left it (what did I expect? Martians looting my stuff?)

It would take a while to let the Hab cool, so I started that right away by turning the temperature down to 1C.

I bagged the potato plants, and got a chance to check up on them while I was at it. They’re rooting nicely and about to sprout. One thing I hadn’t accounted for was how to bring them from the Hab to the rovers.

The answer was pretty easy. I put all of them in Martinez’s spacesuit.

Then I dragged it out with me to the rover I’d set up as a temporary nursery.

Making sure to jimmy the heater to stay on, I headed back to the Hab.

Buy the time I got back, it was already chilly. Down to 5C already.

Shivering and seeing my breath condense in front of me, I threw on extra layers of clothes. Fortunately I’m not a very big girl. Octavia's clothes  
fit over mine, and Raven's fit over Raven's. These shitty clothes were designed to be worn in a temperature-controlled environment. Even with three layers, I was still cold. I climbed in to my bunk and under the covers for more warmth.

Once the temperature got to 1C, I waited another hour, just to make sure the bacteria in the dirt got the memo that it was time to take it slow.

The next problem I ran in to was the regulator. Despite my swaggering confidence, I wasn’t able to outwit it. It really does not want to pull too much O2 out of the air. The lowest I could get it to was 15%.

After that, it flatly refused to go lower, and nothing I did mattered. I had all these plans about getting in and reprogramming it. But the safety protocols turned out to be in ROMs.

I can’t blame it. Its whole purpose is to prevent the atmosphere from becoming lethal. Nobody at NASA thought “Hey, let’s allow a fatal lack of oxygen that will make everyone drop dead!”

So I had to use more a more primitive plan.

The regulator uses a different set of vents for air sampling than it does for main air separation. The air that gets freeze-separated comes in through a single large vent on the main unit. But it samples the air from nine small vents that pipe back to the main unit. That way it gets a good average of the Hab, and prevents one localized imbalance from throwing it off.

I taped up eight of the intakes, leaving only one of them active. Then I taped the mouth of a Hefty-sized bag over the neck-hole of a spacesuit (Bellamy's this time). 

In the back of the bag, I poked a small hole and taped it over the remaining intake.

Then I inflated the bag with pure O2 from the suit’s tanks. “Holy shit!” the regulator thought, “I better pull O2 out right away!”

Worked great!  
I decided I not to wear a space suit after all. The atmospheric pressure was going to be fine. All I needed was oxygen. So I grabbed an O2 canister from the medical bay. That way, I had a hell of a lot more freedom of motion. It even had a rubber band to keep it on my face! Though I did need a spacesuit to monitor the actual Hab oxygen level

(The Hab’s main computer was convinced it was 100% O2). Each spacesuit knew how to monitor its own internal air, of course.

Let’s see... Martinez’s spacesuit was in the rover. Johanssen’s was outwitting the regulator. Lewis’s was serving as a water-tank. I didn’t want to mess with mine (hey, it’s custom fitted!). That left me three spacesuits to work with. 

I grabbed Raven's suit and activated the internal air sensors while leaving the helmet off. Once the oxygen dropped to 12% I put the breather mask on. I watched it fall further and further. When it reached 1% I cut power to the regulator. I may not be able to reprogram the regulator, but I can turn the bastard off completely.

The Hab has emergency flashlights in many locations in case of critical power failure. I tore the L.E.D. bulbs out of one and left the two frayed power wires very close together. Now when I turned it on I got a small spark.

Taking a canister of O2 from Vogel’s suit, I attached a strap to both .ends and slung it over my shoulder. Then I attached an air line to the tank and crimped it with my thumb. I turned on a very slow trickle of O2; a small enough that it couldn’t overpower the crimp.

Standing on the table with a sparker in one hand and my oxygen line in the other, I reached up and gave it a try.

And holy hell it worked! Blowing the O2 over the sparker, I flicked the switch on the flashlight and a wonderful jet of flame fired out of the tube. The fire alarm went off, of course. But I’d heard it so much lately I barely noticed it any more.

Then I did it again. And again. Short bursts. Nothing flashy. I was happy to take my time.

I was elated! This was the best plan ever! Not only was I clearing out the hydrogen, I was making more water!

Everything went great right up to the explosion.

One minute I was happily burning hydrogen; the next I was on the other side of the Hab and a lot of stuff was knocked over. I stumbled to my feet and saw the Hab in disarray.

My first thought was “My ears hurt like hell!”

Then I thought “I’m dizzy,” and fell to my knees. Then I fell prone. I was that dizzy. I groped my head with both hands, looking for a head-wound I desperately hoped would not be there. Nothing seemed to be amiss.

But feeling all over my head and face revealed the true problem. My oxygen mask had been ripped off in the blast. I was breathing nearly pure   
nitrogen.  
The floor was covered in junk from all over the Hab. No hope of finding the medical O2 tank. No hope of finding anything in this mess before I passed out.

Then I saw Anya's suit suit hanging right where it belonged. It hadn’t moved in the blast. It was heavy to start with and had 70L of water in it.

Rushing over, I quickly cranked on the O2 and stuck my head into the neck-hole (I’d removed the helmet long ago, for easy access to the water). I breathed a bit until the dizziness faded, then took a deep breath and held it.

Still holding my breath, I glanced over to the spacesuit and Hefty bag

I’d used to outsmart the regulator. The bad news is I’d never removed them. The good news is the explosion removed them. Eight of the nine intakes for the regulator were still bagged, but this one would at least tell the truth.

Stumbling over to the regulator, I turned it back on.

After a two second boot process (it was made to start up fast for obvious reasons) it immediately identified the problem.

The shrill low-oxygen alarm blared throughout the Hab as the regulator dumped pure oxygen in to the atmosphere as fast as it safely could. 

Separating oxygen from the atmosphere is difficult and time consuming, but adding it is as simple as opening a valve.

I clambered over debris back to Anya's spacesuit and put my head back in for more good air. Within three minutes, the regulator had brought the Hab oxygen back up to par.

I noticed for the first time how burned my clothing was. It was a good time to be wearing three layers of clothes. Mostly the damage was on my sleeves. The outer layer was gone. The middle layer was singed and burned clean through in places. The inner layer, my own uniform, was in reasonably good shape. Looks like I lucked out again.

Also, glancing at the Hab’s main computer, I see the temperature rose to 15C. Something very hot and very explodey happened, and I wasn’t   
sure what. Or how.  
And that’s where I am now. Wondering what the hell happened.

After all that work and getting blown up, I’m exhausted. Tomorrow

I’ll have to do a million equipment checks and try to figure out what blew up, but for now I just want to sleep.

I’m in the rover again tonight. Even with the hydrogen gone, I’m reluctant to hang out in a Hab that has a history of exploding for no reason. Plus, I can’t be sure there isn’t a leak.

This time, I brought a proper meal, and something to listen to that isn’t disco (Thank You Bellamy Blake)."

" Clarke Griffin signing off."


	11. Chapter 11

The Martian Au :)

=========================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 41  
"I spent the day running full diagnostics on every system in the Hab. It was incredibly boring, but my survival depends on these machines, so it had to be done. I can’t just assume an explosion did no long-term damage.

I did the most critical tests first. Number one was the integrity of the Hab canvas. I felt pretty confident it was in good shape, cause I’d spent a few hours asleep in the rover before returning to the Hab, and the pressure was still good. The computer reported no change pressure over that time, other than a minor fluctuation based on temperature.

Then I checked the Oxygenator. If that stops working and I can’t fix it, I’m a dead woman. No problems.

Then the Atmospheric Regulator. Again, no problem.

Heating unit, primary battery array, O2 and N2 storage tanks, Water Reclaimer, all three airlocks, lighting systems, main computer... on and on I went, feeling better and better as each system proved to be in perfect working order.

Got to hand it to NASA. They don’t fuck around when making this stuff.

Then came the critical part... checking the dirt. Taking a few samples from all over the Hab (remember, it’s all dirt flooring now), I made some slides.

I took them over to the microscope and checked up on my beloved bacteria. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw healthy, active bacteria doing their thing.

Then I set about cleaning up the mess. And I had a lot of time to think about what had happened.

So what happened? Well, I have a theory.

According to the main computer, during the blast, the internal pressure spiked to 1.4 atmospheres, and the temperature rose to 15C in under a second. But the pressure quickly subsided back to 1atm. This would make sense if the Atmospheric Regulator were on, but I’d cut  
power to it.

The temperature remained 15C for some time afterward, so any heat expansion should still have been present. But the pressure dropped down again, so where did that extra pressure go? Raising the temperature and keeping the same number of atoms inside should permanently raise the pressure. But it didn’t.

I quickly realized the answer. The hydrogen (the only available thing to burn) combined with oxygen (hence combustion) and became water.

Water is a thousand times as dense as a gas. So the heat added to the pressure, and the transformation of hydrogen and oxygen in to water brought it back down again.

The million dollar question is: Where the hell did the oxygen come from? The whole plan was to limit oxygen and keep an explosion from happening. And it was working for quite a while before blowing up.

I think I have my answer. And it comes down to me brain-farting.

Remember when I decided not to wear a spacesuit? That decision almost killed me.

The medical O2 tank mixes pure oxygen with surrounding air, then feeds it to you through a mask. The mask stays on your face with a little rubber band that goes around the back of your neck. Not an air-tight seal.

I know what you’re thinking. The mask leaked oxygen. But no. I was breathing the oxygen. When I was inhaling, I made a nearly airtight seal  
with the mask by sucking it to my face.

The problem was the exhale. Do you know how much oxygen you absorb out of the air when you take a normal breath? I don’t know either, but it’s not 100%. With every breath, I was taking in oxygen, my lungs grabbed some of it, then I was breathing it out into the Hab. Every time I exhaled, I added more oxygen to the system.

It just didn’t occur to me. But it should have. If your lungs grabbed up all the oxygen, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation wouldn’t work. I’m such adumb-ass for not thinking of it! And my dumbassery almost got me killed!

I’m really going to have to be more careful.

It’s a good thing I burned off most of the hydrogen before the explosion. Otherwise that would have been the end. As it is, the explosion wasn’t strong enough to pop the Hab. Though it was strong enough to almost blast my eardrums in.

The Water Reclaimer did its job last night and pulled another 50L of water out of the air. Long ago before hydrogen became the focus of my life, my problem was the 60L shortfall in water production. 50L of it is now in Lexa's spacesuit, which I’ll call “The Cistern” from now on because it sounds cooler. The other 10L of water was absorbed by the dry soil.

Lots of physical labor today. I’ve earned a full meal. And to celebrate my first night back in the Hab, I’ll kick back and watch some shitty 20th century TV courtesy of Commander Lexa.

“The Dukes of Hazzard,” eh? Let’s give it a whirl."  
===========================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 42  
"I slept in late today. I deserved it. After four nights of awful sleep in the rover, my bunk felt like the softest, most profoundly beautiful featherbed ever made.

Anyway, I dragged my ass out of bed and finished some post-explosion cleanup.

I moved the potato plants back in today. And just in time, too.

They’re sprouting. They look healthy and happy. This isn’t chemistry, medicine, bacteriology, nutrition analysis, explosion dynamics, or any other shit I’ve been doing lately, this is botany. I’m sure I can at least grow some plants without fucking up.

Right?

You know what really sucks? I’ve only made 130L of water. I have another 470L to go. You’d think after almost killing myself twice, I’d stop screwing around with hydrazine. But nope. I’ll be reducing hydrazine and burning hydrogen in the Hab, every 10 hours, for another 10 days. Let’s hope I do a better job of it from now on.

I’ll have a lot of dead time. 10 hours for each tank of C02 to finish filling. It only takes 20 minutes to reduce the hydrazine and burn the hydrogen. I’ll spend the rest of the time watching TV.

And seriously... It’s clear the General Lee can outrun a police cruiser. Why doesn’t Roscoe just go to the Duke farm and arrest them when they’re not in the car?"  
==========================================  
EARTH

Kane returned to his office, dropped his briefcase on the floor, and collapsed into his leather chair. He took a moment to look out the windows at his scenic view of the Johnson Space Center.

Glancing at his computer screen, he noted 47 unread emails urgently demanding his attention. They could wait. Today had been a sad day.

Today was the memorial service for Clarke Griffin.

The President had given a speech, praising Clarke's bravery and sacrifice, and the quick actions of Commander Lexa in getting everyone else to safety. Commander Lexa and the surviving crew, via long range communication from Hermes, gave eulogies to their departed comrade from deep space. They had another ten months of travel yet to endure.

The Director had given a speech as well, reminding everyone that space flight is incredibly dangerous, and how we will not back down in the face of adversity.

During preparation for the service, they’d asked Kane if he was willing to make a speech. He’d declined. What was the point? Clarke was dead. Nice words form the Director of Mars Missions wouldn’t bring her back.

“You ok, Kane?” came a voice from the doorway.

Kane swiveled around. “Guess so,” he said.

“You could have given a speech.”

“I didn’t want to. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know. I didn’t want to, either. But I’m the director of NASA.  
It’s kind of expected. You sure you’re ok?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“Good,” Jaha said, walking in. “Let’s get back to work, then.”

“Sure,” Kane shrugged. “Let’s start with you authorizing my  
satellite time.”

Jaha leaned against the wall with a sigh. “This again.”

“Yes,” Kane said. “This again. What is the problem?”

“Ok, run me through it. What, exactly, are you after?”

Kane leaned forward. “Ares 3 was a failure, but we can salvage something from it. We’re funded for five Ares missions. I think we can get Congress to fund a sixth.”  
“I don’t know, Kane...”

“It’s simple, Jaha,” Kane pressed on. “They evac’d after six sols. There’s almost an entire mission worth of supplies up there. It would only cost a fraction of a normal mission. It normally takes 14 presupply probes to prep a site. We might be able to send what’s missing in three. Maybe two.”

“Kane, the site got hit by a 175 km/h sandstorm. It’ll be in really bad  
shape.”

“That’s why I want imagery,” Kane explained. “I just need a couple of shots of the site. We could learn a lot.”

“Like what? You think we’d send people to Mars without being sure everything was in perfect working order?”

“Everything doesn’t have to be perfect,” Kane said quickly.

“Whatever’s broken, we’d send replacements for. The only thing that  
needs to work is the MAV. And we’d have to send a fresh one anyway.”

“How will we know from imagery what’s broken?”

“It’s just a first step. They evac’d because the wind was a threat to the MAV, but the Hab can withstand a lot more punishment. It might still be in one piece."

“And it’ll be really obvious. If it popped, it’d completely blow out and collapse. If it’s still standing, then everything inside will be fine. And the rovers are solid. They can take any sandstorm Mars has to offer. Just let me take a look, Jaha, that’s all I want.”  
Jaha looked down, “You’re not the only guy who wants satellite time, you know. We have Ares 4 supply missions coming up. We need to concentrate on Schiaparelli Crater.”

“I don't get it, Jaha. What's the problem here?” Kane asked. “I’m talking about securing us another mission. We have 12 satellites in orbit around Mars, I’m sure you can spare one or two for a couple of hours. I can give you the windows for each one when they’ll be at the right angle for Ares 3 shots-“

“It’s not about satellite time, Kan,” Jaha interrupted.

Kane froze. “Then... but... what...”

Jaha looked down. “We’re a public domain organization. There’s no such thing as secret or secure information here.”

“So?”

“Any imagery we take goes directly to the public.”

“Again: so?”  
“Clarke Griffin's body will be within a twenty meters of the Hab. Maybe partially buried in sand, but still very visible, and with a comm  
antenna sticking out of her head. Any images we take will show that.”

Kane stared. Then glared. “ This is why you denied my imagery requests for two months?”

“Kane, come on-“

“Really, Jaha?” he said. “You’re afraid of a PR problem?”

“The media’s obsession with Clarke's death is finally starting to taper off,” Jaha said evenly. “It’s been bad press after bad press for two months. Today’s memorial gives people closure, and the media can move on to some other story. The last thing we want to do is dredge everything back up.”

“So what do we do, then? She's not going to decompose. She’ll be there forever.”

“Not forever,” Jaha said. “Within a year, she’ll be covered in sand from normal weather activity.”

“A year?” Kane said, rising to his feet. “That’s ludicrous. We can’t wait a year for this.”

“Why not? Ares 5 won’t even launch for another five years. Plenty of time.”

Kane took a deep breath and thought for a moment. “Ok, consider this,” he said. “Sympathy for Clarke's family is really high. Ares 6 could bring the body back. We don’t say that’s the purpose of the mission, but we make it clear that would be part of it. If we framed it that way, we’d get more support in Congress. But not if we wait a year. In a year, people won’t care any more.”

Jaha rubbed his chin. “Hmm...”


	12. Chapter 12

The Martian Au :)

==============================  
EARTH

Luna stared at the ceiling. She had little else to do. The 3am shift was pretty dull. Only a constant stream of coffee kept her awake.

Monitoring the status of satellites around Mars sounded like an exciting proposition when she took the transfer. But the satellites tended to take care of themselves. Her job turned out to be sending emails as imagery became available.

“Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering,” she grumbled to herself. “And I’m working in an all-night photo booth.”

She sipped her coffee.

A flicker on her screen announced another set of images were ready for dispatch. She checked the name on the work order. Marcus Kane. Posting the data directly to internal servers, she composed an email to Dr. Griffin. As she entered the latitude and longitude of the image, she recognized the numbers.

"31.2°N, 28.5°W... Acidalia Planitia... Ares 3?”

Out of curiosity, she brought up the first of the 17 images.

As she suspected, it was the Ares 3 site. She’d heard they were going to image it. Slightly ashamed of herself, she scoured the image for any sign on Clarke Griffin's dead body. After a minute of fruitless searching, she was simultaneously relieved and disappointed.

She moved on to perusing the rest of the image. The Hab was intact; Dr. Griffin would be happy to see that.

She brought the coffee mug to her lips, then froze.

“Um...” she mumbled to herself. “Uhhh...”

Quickly bringing up the NASA intranet, she navigated through the site to the specifics of the Ares missions. After some quick research, she picked up her phone.

“Hey, this is Luna Waters at SatCon. I need the mission logs for Ares 3, where can I get ‘em?... Uh huh... uh-huh.... Ok... Thanks.”

After some more time on the intranet, she leaned back in her seat. She no longer needed the coffee to keep awake.

Picking up the phone again, “Hello, Security? This is Luna Waters in SatCon. I need the emergency contact number for Dr. Marcus Kane....Yes, the Director of Mars Missions... Yes it’s and emergency."  
\---------------------------------------  
Luna fidgeted in her seat as Kane trudged in.

“You Luna Waters?” He asked, looking mildly annoyed.

“Yeah,” she quavered. “Sorry to drag you in.”

“I’m assuming you had a good reason. So?”

“Um,” she said, looking down. “Um, it’s. Well. The imagery you ordered. Um. Come here and look.”

He pulled another chair to her station and seated himself. “Is this about Clarke's body? Is that why you’re shook up?”

“Um, no,” she said. “Um. Well... uh.” She pointed to the screen.

Kane inspected the image. “Looks like the Hab’s in one piece. That’s good news. Solar array looks good. One of the rovers are ok, too. Main dish isn’t around. No surprise there. What’s the big emergency?”

“Um,” she said, touching her finger to the screen. “That.”

Kane leaned in and looked closer. Just below the Hab, beside the surviving Rover, two white circles sat in the sand. “Hmm. Looks like Hab canvas. Maybe the Hab didn’t do well after all? I guess pieces got torn off and-“

“Um,” she interrupted. “They look like rover pop-tents.”

Kane looked again. “Hmm. Probably right.”

“How’d they get set up?” Mindy asked.

Kane shrugged. “Commander Lexa probably ordered them deployed during the evac. Not a bad idea. Have the emergency shelters ready in case the MAV didn’t work and the Hab breached.”

“Yeah, um,” Luna said, opening a document on her computer. “This is the entire mission log for Sols 1 through 6. From MDV touchdown to MAV emergency liftoff.”

“Ok, and?”

“I read through it. Several times. They never threw out the pop tents.”  
Her voice cracked at the last word.

“Well, uh...” Kane said, puzzled. “They obviously did, but it didn’t make it in to the log.”

“They activated two emergency pop tents and never told anyone?”

“Hmm. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, no. Maybe the storm messed with the rovers and the tents auto-deployed."

“Um,” Luna stammered, “So after auto-deploying, they detached themselves from the rovers and lined up next to each other 20 meters away?”  
Kane looked back to the image. “Well obviously they activated somehow.”

“Why are the solar cells clean?” Luna said, tears forming. “There was a huge sandstorm. Why isn’t there sand all over them?”  
“  
A good wind could have done it?” Kane said, unsure.

“Did I mention I never found Clarke's body?” She said, sniffling.  
Kane's eyes widened as he stared at the picture. “Oh...” he said quietly. “Oh god...”

Mindy put her hands over her face and sobbed quietly.  
\------------------------------------------  
“Fuck!” Director of Media Relations Annie Montrose said. “You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

Jaha rubbed his forehead. “How sure are we of this?”

“Nearly 100%,” Kane said.

“Fuck!” Titus said.  
“Not helping, Titus,” Jaha said.  
“Do you have any idea the magnitude of shitstorm this is gonna’ be?” He retorted.

“One thing at a time,” Jaha said. “Kane, what makes you sure she’s alive?”

“For starters, no body.” Kane explained. “Also, the pop-tents are set up. And the solar cells are clean. You can thank Luna Waters in SatCon for  
noticing all that, by the way. “But,” Kane continued, “her body could have been buried in the Sol 6 storm. The pop tents might have autodeployed and wind could have blown them around. A 30km/h windstorm some time later would be strong enough to clean the solar cells but not strong enough to carry sand.

It’s not likely, but it’s possible.

“So I spent the last few hours checking everything I could.  
Commander Lexa had two outings in Rover 2. The second was on Sol 5.

"According to the logs, after returning, she plugged it in to the Hab for recharging. It wasn’t used again, and 13 hours later they evac’d.”

He slid a picture across the table to Jaha.

“That’s one of the images from last night. As you can see, Rover 1 is facing away from the Hab. The charging port is in the nose, and the cable isn’t long enough to reach.”  
Jaha frowned. “She must have parked it facing the Hab or she wouldn’t have been able to plug it in,” he said. “It’s been moved since Sol 5.”

“Yeah,” Kane said, sliding another picture to Jaha. “But here’s the real evidence. In the lower right of the image you can see the MDV. It’s been taken apart. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have done that without telling us.

“And the clincher is on the right of the image,” Kane pointed. “The landing struts of the MAV. Looks like the fuel plant has been completely removed, with considerable damage to the struts in the process. There’s just no way that could have happened before liftoff. It would endanger the MAV way too much for Lexa to allow it.”

“Hey,” Titus interrupted. “Why not talk to Lexa? Let’s go to CAPCOM and ask her this shit directly.”

Kane looked to Jaha knowingly. After a few moments, Jaha sighed.

“Because,” he said. “If Clarke really is alive, we don’t want the Ares 3 crew to know.”

“What!?” Titus said. “How can you not tell them?”

“They have another ten months on their trip home,” Jaha explained.

“Space travel is dangerous. They need to be alert and undistracted. They’re sad that they lost a crewmate, but they’d be devastated if they found out they’d abandoned her alive.”

Titus looked to Kane. “You’re on board with this?”

“It’s a no-brainer,” Kane said. “Let ‘em deal with that emotional trauma when they’re not flying a spaceship around.”

“This’ll be the most talked-about event since Apollo 11,” Titus said.

“How will you keep it from them?"

Jaha shrugged. “Easy. We control all communication with them.”

“Fuck,” Titus said, opening his laptop. “When do you want to go public?”

“What’s your take,” he asked.

“Mmm,” Titus said, “We can hold the pics for 24 hours before we’re required to make them public. We’ll need to release a statement along with them. We don’t want people working it out on their own. We’d look like assholes.”

“Ok,” Jaha agreed, “put together a statement.”

“This is so fucked up,” he said.

“Where do we go from here?” Jaha asked Kane.

“Step one is communication,” Kane said. “From the pics, it’s clear the comm array is ruined. We need another way to talk. Once we can talk, we can assess and make plans.”

“All right,” Jaha said. “Get on it. Take anyone you want for any department. Use as much overtime as you want. Find a way to talk to her. That’s your only job right now.”

“Got it.”

“Titus, make sure nobody gets wind of this till we announce.”

“Right,” Titus said. “Who else knows?”

“Just the three of us and Luna Waters in SatCon,” Kane said.

“I’ll have a word with her,” Titus said.

Jaha stood and opened his cell phone. “I’m going to Chicago. I’ll be back later today.”

“Why?” Titus asked.  
“That’s where Clarke's parents live,” Teddy said. “I owe them a personal explanation, especially since Abby Griffin works for us, before it breaks on the news.”

“They’ll be happy to hear their daughter's alive,” Titus said.

“Yeah, she’s alive,” Jaha said. “But if my math is right, she’s doomed to starve to death before we can possibly help him. I’m not looking forward to the conversation.”

“Fuck,” Titus said, thoughtfully.  
\------------------------------------------------

“Nothing? Nothing at all?” Kane groaned. “Are you kidding me? You had 20 experts working for 12 hours on this. We have a multi-billion dollar communication network. You can’t figure out any way to talk to her?”

The two men in Kane's office fidgeted in their chairs.

“She’s got no radio,” said Jasper.  
“Actually,” said Monty, “She’s got a radio, but she doesn’t have a dish.”

“Thing is,” Jasper continued, “without the dish, a signal would have to be really strong-“

“Like, melting-the-pigeons strong-“ Monty supplied.

“-for her to get it.” Chuck finished.

“We considered Martian satellites,” Monty said. “They’re way closer. But the math doesn’t work out. Even SuperSurveyor 3, which has the strongest transmitter, would need to be 14 times more powerful-“

“17 times,” Jasper said.

“14 times,” Monty asserted.

“No it’s 17. You forgot the amperage minimum for the heaters to  
keep the-“

“Guys,” Kane interrupted. “I get the idea.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry if I’m grumpy,” Kane said. “I got like 2 hours sleep last night.”

“No problem,” Monty said.

“Totally understandable,” Jasper said.

“Ok,” Kane said. “Explain to me how a single windstorm removed our ability to talk to Ares 3.”

“Failure of imagination,” Jasper said.

“Totally didn’t see it coming,” Monty agreed.

“How many back-up communication systems does an Ares mission have?” Kane asked.

“Four,” Jasper said.

“Three,” Monty said.

“No, it’s four,” Jasper corrected.

"He said back-up systems,” Monty insisted. “That means not including the primary system.”

“Oh right. Three.”

“So four systems total, then,” Kane said. “Explain how we lost all four.”

“Well,” Jasper said, “The primary ran through the big satellite dish. It blew away in the storm. The rest of the backups were the MAV.”

“Yup,” Morris agreed. “The MAV is, like, a communicating machine. It can talk to Earth, Hermes, even satellites around Mars if it has to. And it has three independent systems to make sure nothing short of a meteor strike can stop communication.” 

“Problem is,” Jasper said. “Commander Lexa and the rest of them took the MAV when they left.”

“So four independent communication systems became one. And that one broke,” Monty finished.

Kane pinched the bridge of his nose. “How could we overlook this?”

Jasper shrugged. “Never occurred to us. We never thought someone would be on Mars without an MAV.”

“I mean, come on!” Monty said. “What are the odds?”

Jasper turned to him. “One in three, based on empirical data. That’s pretty bad if you think about it.”  
\--------------------------------------------------

“Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” Titus said. “We have an important announcement to make. If you could all take your seats.” 

“What this about, Titus?” A reporter asked. “Something happen with Hermes?”

“Please take your seats,” Titus repeated.

The reporters mingled a bit, argued over seats for a short time, then finally settled down.

“This is a short, but very important announcement,” Titus said. “I won’t be taking any questions at this time, but we will have a full press conference with Q&A in about an hour. We have recently reviewed satellite imagery from Mars, and have confirmed that astronaut Clarke Griffin is, currently, still alive

After one full second of utter silence, the room exploded with noise.  
\---------------------------------------------------  
“I’m getting sick of daily press conferences,” Kane said.

“I’m getting sick of hourly press conferences,” Titus countered.

“Sorry I’m late,” Jaha said, entering the crowded press room.

Managers from every department stood shoulder to shoulder in the back, while reporters crammed the pit.

Jaha pulled some flash cards from his pocket, then cleared his  
throat.

“In the nine days since announcing Clarke Griffins survival, we’re received a massive show of support from all sectors. We’re using this shamelessly every way we can.”

A small chuckle cascaded through the room.

“Yesterday, at our request, the entire SETI network focused on Mars. Just in case Griffin was sending a weak radio signal. Turns out he wasn’t, but it shows the level of commitment everyone has toward helping us."

“The public is engaged, and we will do our best to keep everyone informed. I’ve recently learned CNN will be dedicating a half-hour segment every weekday to reporting on just this issue. We will assign several members of our Media Relations team to that program, so the public can get the latest information as fast as possible.."

“We have adjusted the orbits of three satellites to get more view time on the Ares 3 site, and hope to catch an image of her outside soon. If we can see her outside, we will be able to draw conclusions on her physical health based on stance and activities.

“The questions are many: How long can she last? How much food does she have? Can Ares 4 rescue her? How will we talk to her? The answers  
to these questions are not what we want to hear.

“I can’t promise we’ll succeed in rescuing her, but I can promise this: The entire focus of NASA will be to bring Clarke Griffin home. This will be our overriding and singular obsession until she is either back on Earth, or confirmed dead on Mars."  
\------------------------------------------------  
“Nice speech,” Kane said as he entered Jaha's office.

“Meant every word of it,” Teddy said.

“Oh, I know.”

“What can I do for you, Kane?”

“I’ve got an idea. Well, JPL has an idea. I’m the messenger.”

“I like ideas,” Jaha said, gesturing to a seat.

Kane sat down.

We can rescue her with Ares 4. It’s very risky. We ran the idea by the Ares 4 crew. Not only are they willing to do it, but now they’re really pushing hard for it.”

“Naturally,” Jaha said. “Astronauts are inherently insane. And really noble. What’s the idea?”

“Well,” Kane began, “It’s in the rough stages, but JPL thinks the MDV can be misused to save her.”

“Ares 4 hasn’t even launched yet. Why misuse an MDV. Why not make something better?”

“We don’t have time to make a custom craft. Actually, she can’t even survive till Ares 4 gets there, but that’s a different problem.”

“So tell me about the MDV.”

“JPL strips it down, loses some weight, and adds some fuel tanks. Ares 4’s crew lands at the Ares 3 site, very efficiently. Then, with a full burn, and I mean a full burn, they can lift off again. It can’t get back to orbit, but it can go to the Ares 4 site on a lateral trajectory that’s, well, really scary. Then they have an MAV. This would require a massive design and construction effort, but JPL says they can make it happen.”

“How are they losing weight?” Jaha asked. “Don’t they already have it as light as it can be?”

“By removing safety and emergency equipment.”

“Wonderful,” Jaha said, “So we’d be risking the lives of six more people in a very dangerous landing, re-liftoff, re-landing process.”

“Yup,” Kane said. “It would be safer to leave the Ares 4 crew in Hermes, and only send the pilot down with the MDV. But that would mean giving up the mission and they’d rather risk death."

“They’re astronauts,” Jaha said.

“They’re astronauts,” Kane confirmed.

“Well. That’s a ludicrous idea and I’ll never ok it.”

“We’ll work on it some more,” Kane said. “Try to make it safer.”

“Do that. Any idea how to keep her alive for four years?”

“Nope.”

“Work on that, too.”

“Will do,” Kane said.

Jaha swiveled his chair and looked out the window to the sky beyond. Night was edging in. “What must it be like?” He pondered. “She’s stuck out there. She thinks she’s totally alone and that we all gave up on her. What kind of effect does that have on a human's psychology?”

He turned back to Kane. “I wonder what she’s thinking right now."  
\----------------------------------------------  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 61  
"How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes  
no sense."


	13. Chapter 13

The Martian Au :)

===================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 63

"I finished making water some time ago. I’m no longer in danger of blowing myself up(Thank God And Fuck em' for getting stuck here in the first place). The potatoes are growing nicely. Nothing has conspired to kill me in weeks. And ‘70’s TV keeps me disturbingly more entertained than it should. Things are stable here on Mars.

It’s time to start thinking long term.

Even if I find a way to tell NASA I’m alive, there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to save me. I need to be proactive. I need to figure out how to get to Ares 4.

Won’t be easy.

Ares 4 will be landing at the Schiaparelli Crater, 3,200km away. In fact, their MAV is already there. I know because I watched Lincoln land it.

It takes 18 months for the MAV to make its fuel, so it’s the first thing NASA sends along. Sending it 48 months early gives it plenty of extra time in case fuel reactions go slower than expected. But much more importantly, it means a precision soft-landing can be done remotely by a pilot in orbit. Direct remote operation from Houston isn’t an option; they’re anywhere from 4 to 20 light-minutes away.

Ares 4’s MAV spent 11 months getting to Mars. Using less fuel and taking a longer route, it got there around the same time as us. As expected, Lincoln landed it beautifully. It was one of the last things we did before piling in to our MDV and heading to the surface. Ahh, the good old days, when I had a crew with me.

I’m lucky. 3,200km isn’t that bad. It could have been up to 10,000km away. And because I’m on the flattest part of Mars, the first 650km is nice, smooth terrain (Yay Acidalia Planitia!) but the rest of it is nasty, rugged, crater-pocked hell.

Obviously, I’ll have to use a rover. And guess what? They weren’t designed for massive overland journeys.

This is going to be a research effort, with a bunch of experimentation.

I’ll have to become my own little NASA, figuring out how to explore far from the Hab. The good news is I have lots of time to figure it out.

Almost 4 years.

Some stuff is obvious. I’ll need to use a rover. It’ll take a long time, so I’ll need to bring supplies. I’ll need to recharge en-route, and rovers don’t have solar cells. I’ll need to steal some from the Hab’s solar farm.

During the trip I’ll need to breathe, eat, and drink.

Lucky for me, the tech specs for everything are right here in the computer.

I’ll need to trick out a rover. Basically it’ll have to be a mobile Hab.

I’ll pick obviously the only working Rover as my target. We have a certain bond, after I spent two days in it during the “Great Hydrogen Scare of Sol 37.”

There’s too much shit to think about all at once. So for now, I’ll just think about power.

Our mission had a 10km operational radius. Knowing we wouldn’t take straight-line paths, NASA designed the rovers to go 35km on a full charge. That presumes flat, reasonable terrain. Each rover has a 9000Wh battery.

Step one is to loot Rover 2's battery and install it in Rover 1. Ta-daa!  
I just doubled my full-charge range.

There’s just one complication. Heating.

Part of the battery power goes to heating the rover. Mars is really cold. Normally, we were expected to do all EVAs in under 5 hours. But I’ll be living in it 24½ hours a day. According to the specs, the heating equipment soaks up 400W. Keeping it on would eat up 9800Wh per day.

Over half my power supply, every day!

But I do have a free source of heat: Me. A couple million years of evolution gave me “warm blooded” technology. I can wear layers. The rover has good insulation, too. It’ll have to be enough; I need every bit of power.

And because I need to bundle up anyway, I can deactivate the heater outright and use all the power for motion (minus a negligible amount for computer, life support, etc.

According to my boring math, moving the rover eats 200Wh of juice to go 1km, so using the full 18,000Wh gets me 90km of travel. Now we’re talkin’.

I’ll never actually get 90km on a single charge. I’ll have hills to deal with, and rough terrain, sand, etc. But it’s a good ballpark. It tells me that it would take at least  
35 days of travel to get to Ares 4. It’ll probably be more like 50. But that’s plausible, at least.

At the rover’s blazing 25kph top speed, it’ll take me 3½ hours before I run the battery down. I’d like to charge the battery up during the rest of the day. I can drive in twilight, and save the sunny part of the day for charging. This time of year I get about 13 hours of light. How many solar cells will I have to pilfer from the Hab’s farm?

Thanks to the fine taxpayers of America, I have over 100 of square meters of the most expensive solar paneling ever made. It has an astounding 10.2% efficiency, which is good because Mars doesn’t get as much sunlight as Earth. Only 500 to 700 watts per square meter (Compared to the 1400 those spoiled Earthlings get).  
Long story short: I need to bring 28 square meters of solar cell. That’s

14 panels.

I can put two stacks of 7 on the roof. They’ll stick out over the edges, but as long as they’re secure I’m happy. Every day, after driving, I’ll spread them out then... wait all day. Man it’ll be dull."

Well it’s a start. Tomorrow’s mission: transfer Rover 2’s battery to Rover 1.  
==================================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 64  
"Sometimes things are easy, and sometimes they’re not. Getting the battery out of Rover 2 was easy(Since it was destroyed to all hell..At least I have the bootiful battery). I removed 1 of two clamps on the undercarriage and it dropped right out ( Guess where the other clamp was?...I don't know either). The cabling is easy to detach, too.

It’s just a couple of complicated plugs.

Attaching it to Rover 1, however, is another story. There’s nowhere to put it!  
The things is huge. I was barely able to drag it. And that’s in Mars gravity.

It’s just too big. There’s no room in the undercarriage for a second one. There’s no room on the roof, either. That’s where the solar cells will  
go. There’s no room inside the cabin, and it wouldn’t fit through the airlock anyway.

But fear not, I found a solution.

For emergencies completely unrelated to this one, NASA provided 6 square meters of Hab canvas, and some really impressive resin. The same kind of resin, in fact, that saved my life on Sol 6 (the patch kit I used on the hole in my suit).

In the event of a Hab breach, everyone would run to the airlocks.

Procedure was to let it pop rather than die trying to prevent it. Then, we’d suit up and assess the damage. Once we found the breach, we’d seal it with the spare Hab canvas and resin. Then re-inflate and we’re good as new.

The 6 square meters of spare canvas was a convenient 1x6 meters. I cut 10cm wide strips, then used them to make a sort of harness.

I used the resin and straps to make two 10m circumference loops.

Then I put a big patch of canvas on each end. I now had poor-man’s saddlebags for my rover.

This is getting more and more “Wagon Train” every day.

The resin sets almost instantly. But it gets stronger if you wait an hour. So I did. Then I suited up and headed out to the rover.

I dragged the battery to the side of the rover and looped one end of the harness around it. Then I threw the other end over the roof. On the other side, I filled it with rocks. When the two weights were roughly equal, I was able to pull the rocks down and bring the battery up.  
Yay!

Unplugging Rover 2’s battery, I plugged in Rover 1’s. Then I went through the airlock to the rover and checked all systems. Everything was a-ok.  
I drove the rover around a bit to make sure the harness was secure. I found a few large-ish rocks to drive over, just to shake things up. The  
harness held. Hell yeah! 

For a short time, I wondered how to splice the second battery’s leads into the main power supply. My conclusion was “Fuck it.”

There’s no need to have a continuous power supply. When Battery 1 runs out, I can get out, unplug Battery 1 and plug in Battery 2. Why not?

It’s a 10 minute EVA, once per day. I’d have to swap batteries again when charging, but again: so what?

I spent the rest of the day sweeping off the solar cell farm. Soon, I shall be looting it."  
============================================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 65

"The solar cells were a lot easier to manage than the battery.

They’re thin, light, and just laying around on the ground. And I had one additional bonus: I was the one who set them up In the first place.

Well, ok. It wasn’t just me. Vogel and I worked together on it. And boy did we drill on it. We spent almost an entire week drilling on the solar array alone. Then we drilled more whenever they figured we had spare time. It had been deemed mission critical. If we fucked it up and broke the cells or rendered them useless, the Hab wouldn’t be able to make power, and the mission would end.

You might wonder what the rest of the crew were doing. They were setting up the Hab. Remember, everything in my glorious kingdom came  
here in boxes. We had to set it up on Sols 1 and 2.

Each solar cell is on a lightweight lattice that holds it at a 14 degree angle. I’ll admit I don’t know why it’s a 14 degree angle. Something about maximizing solar energy. Anyway, removing the cells was simple.

Then it was time to stack them on the rover.

I considered removing the rock sample container. It’s nothing more than a large canvas bag attached to the roof. Way too small to hold the solar cells. But after some thought I left it there, figuring It’ll provide a good cushion.

The cells stacked well (they were made to, for transport to Mars), and the two stacks sat nicely on the roof. They hung over the left and right edges, but I won’t be going through any tunnels so I don’t care.

With some more abuse of the emergency Hab material, I made straps and tied the cells down. The rover has external handles near the front and back. They’re there to help us load rocks on the roof. They made perfect anchor points for the straps.

I stood back and admired my work. Hey, I earned it. It wasn’t even noon and I was done.

I came back to the Hab, had some lunch, and worked on my crops for the rest of the sol. It's been 39 sols since I planted the potatoes (which is about 40 Earth days), and it was time to reap and re-sow.

They grew even better than I had expected. Mars has no insects, parasites, or blights to deal with, and the Hab maintains perfect growing temperature and moisture at all times.

They were small compared to the taters you'd usually eat, but that's fine. All I wanted was enough to support growing new plants.

I dug them up, being careful to leave their plants alive. Then I cut them up in to small pieces with one eye each, and re-seeded in to new  
dirt. If they keep growing this well, I'll be able to last a good long time here.

After all that physical labor, I deserved a break. I rifled through Anya's computer today, and found an endless supply of digital  
books. Looks like she’s a big fan of Agatha Christie. Beatles, Christie... I  
guess Anya's an anglophile or something.

I remember liking Hercule Poirot TV specials back when I was a kid.

I’ll start with,'The Mysterious Affair at Styles,'Looks like that’s the first one."

" Clarke Griffin Signing Off."


	14. Chapter 14

The Martian Au :)

 

======================================  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 66

"The time has come (ominous musical crescendo) for some missions!

NASA gets to name their missions after gods and stuff, so why can’t I? Henceforth, rover experimental missions will be “Sirius” missions. Get it? Dogs? Well if you don’t, fuck you.

Sirius 1 will be tomorrow.

The mission: Starting with fully charged batteries, and having the solar cells on the roof, drive until I run out of power, and see how far I get.

I won’t be an idiot. I’m not driving directly away from the Hab. I’ll drive a half-kilometer stretch, back and forth. I’ll be within a short walk of home all times.

Tonight, I’ll charge up both batteries so I can be ready for a little test drive tomorrow. I estimate 3½ hours of driving, so I’ll need to bring fresh CO2 filters. And, with the heater off, I’ll wear three layers of clothing."  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 67

"Sirius 1 is complete!

More accurately, Sirius 1 was aborted after 1 hour. I guess you could call it a “failure” but I prefer the term “learning experience.”

Things started out fine. I drove to a nice flat spot a kilometer from the Hab, then started going back and forth over a 500m stretch.

I quickly realized this would be a crappy test. After a few laps, I had compressed the soil enough to have a solid path. Nice, hard ground,which makes for abnormally high energy efficiency. This is nothing like it would be on a long trip.

So I shook it up a bit. I drove around randomly, making sure to stay within a kilometer of the Hab. A much more realistic test.

After an hour, things started to get cold. And I mean really cold.

The rover’s always cold when you first get in it. When you haven’t disabled the heater it warms up right away. I expected it to be cold, but  
Jesus Christ!

I was fine for a while. My own body heat plus three layers of clothing kept me warm and the rover’s insulation is top-notch. The heat that escaped my body just warmed up the interior. But there’s no such thing as perfect insulation, and eventually the heat left to the great outdoors while I got colder and colder.

Within an hour, I was chattering and numb. Enough was enough.

There’s no way I could do a long trip like this. The test was over.

Turning the heater on, I drove straight back to the Hab.

Once I got home, I sulked for a while. All my brilliant plans foiled by thermodynamics. Damn you, Entropy!

I’m in a bind. The damn heater will eat half my battery power every day. I could turn it down, I guess. Be a little cold but not freezing to death. Even then I’d still lose at least a quarter.

This will require some thought. I have to ask myself... what would Hercule Poirot do? I’ll have to put my “little gray cells” to work on the problem."  
\---------------------------------------------------  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 68

"Well shit.

I came up with a solution, but... remember when I burned rocket fuel in the Hab? This’ll be more dangerous.

I’m going to use the RTG.

The RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator) is a big box of Plutonium. But not the kind used in nuclear bombs. No, no. This Plutonium is way more dangerous!

Plutonium-238 is an incredibly unstable isotope. It’s so radioactive that it will get red hot all by itself. As you can imagine, a material that can literally fry an egg with radiation is kind of dangerous.

The RTG houses the Plutonium, catches the radiation in the form of heat, and turns it in to electricity. It’s not a reactor. The radiation can’t be increased or decreased. It’s a purely natural process happening at the atomic level.

As long ago as the 1960’s, NASA’s been using RTGs to power unmanned probes. It has lots of advantages over solar power. It’s not affected by storms; it works day or night; it’s entirely internal, so you don’t need delicate solar cells all over your probe. 

But they never used large RTGs on manned missions until The Ares Program.

Why not? It should be pretty fucking obvious why not! They didn’t want to put astronauts next to a glowing hot ball of radioactive death!

I'm exaggerating a little. The Plutonium is inside a bunch of pellets, each one sealed and insulated to prevent radiation leakage even if the outer container is  
breached. So for the Ares Program, they took the risk.

An Ares mission is all about the MAV. It’s the single most important component. It’s one of the few systems that can’t be replaced or worked around. It’s the only component that causes a complete mission scrub if it’s not working.

Solar cells are great in the short-term, and they’re good for the long- term if you have humans around to clean them. But the MAV sits alone for years quietly making fuel, then just kind of hangs out until its crew arrives. Even doing nothing, it needs power, so NASA can monitor it remotely and run self checks.

The prospect of scrubbing a mission because a solar cell got dirty was unacceptable. They needed a more reliable source of power. So the MAV comes equipped with an RTG. It has 2.6kg of Plutonium-238, which makes almost 1500 Watts of heat. It can turn that in to 100 Watts of electricity. The MAV runs on that until the crew arrive.

100 Watts isn’t enough to keep the heater going, but I don’t care about the electrical output. I want the heat. A 1500 Watt heater is so warm I’ll have to tear insulation out of the rover to keep it from getting too hot.

As soon as the rovers were un-stowed and activated, Commander Lexa (My secret lover *Wink Wink*) had the joy of disposing of the RTG. She detached it from the  
MAV, drove 4 km away, and buried it. However safe it may be, it's still a radioactive core and NASA didn't want it too close to their astronauts.

The mission parameters don’t give a specific location to dump the RTG. Just “At least 4km away”. So I’ll have to find it.

I have two things working for me. First, I was assembling solar panels with Raven when Commander Lexa drove off, and I saw she headed due south. Also, she planted a 3 meter pole with a bright green flag on it where she buried it. Green shows up extremely well against the Martian terrain. It’s made to ward us off, in case we get lost on a rover EVA later on.

So my plan is: Head south 4km, then search around till I see the green flag.

Having rendered Rover 2 unusable (Fucking obviously), I’ll have to use my Mutant Rover for the trip. I can make a useful test mission of it. I’ll see how well the  
battery harness holds up to a real journey, and how well the solar cells do strapped to the roof.

I’ll call it Sirius 2. (I'm a proud rover mother)"  
\------------------------------------------------  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 69

"Found the RTG.

It wasn’t hard to find. I drove 4km south and saw the flag right away.

Commander Lexa had buried it atop a small hill. She probably wanted to make sure everyone could see the flag, and it worked great!

Except instead of avoiding it, I bee-lined to it and dug it up. Not exactly what she was going for.

It’s a large cylinder with heat-sinks all around it. I could feel the warmth it gave off even through my suit’s gloves. That’s really disconcerting. Especially when you know the root cause of the heat is radiation.

No point in putting it on the roof; my plan was to have it in the cabin anyway. So I brought it in with me, turned off the heater, then drove back to the Hab.

In the 10 minutes it took to get home, even with the heater off, the interior of the rover became an uncomfortably hot 37C. The RTG would definitely be able to keep me warm.

The trip also proved my rigging worked. The solar cells and extra battery stayed beautifully in place while traversing 8km of random terrain.

I declare Sirius 2 to be a successful mission! (Be Proud My mother And Father! I Might Be Able TO Survive On Mars!)

I spent the rest of the day vandalizing the interior of the rover. The pressure compartment is made of metal. Just inside that is insulation, which is covered by hard plastic. I used a sophisticated method to remove sections of plastic (hammer), then carefully removed the solid foam insulation (hammer again).

After tearing out some insulation, I suited up and took the RTG outside. Soon, the rover cooled down again, and I brought it back in. I watched as the temperature rose slowly. Nowhere near as fast as it had on my trip back from the burial site. I cautiously removed more insulation (hammer) and checked again.

After a few more cycles of this, I had enough insulation torn out that the RTG could barely keep up with it. In fact, it was a losing battle. Over time, heat would slowly leech out. That’s fine. I can turn on the heater for short bursts when necessary.

I brought the insulation pieces with me back in to the Hab. Using advanced construction techniques (duct tape) I reassembled some of it into a square. I figure if things got really cold, I could tape that to a bare patch in the rover, and the RTG would be winning the “heat fight.”

Tomorrow, Sirius 3 (Which is just Sirius 1 again, but without freezing)."  
\-------------------------------------------------------------  
LOG ENTRY: SOL 70

"Today, I write to you from the rover. I’m halfway-through Sirius 3 and things are going well.

I set out at first light and drove laps around the Hab, trying to stay on untouched ground. The first battery lasted just under two hours. After a quick EVA to switch the cables, I got back to driving. When all was said and done, I had driven 81km in 3 hours and 27 minutes.

That’s very good! Mind you, the land around the Hab is really flat, as is all of Acidalia Planitia. I have no idea what my efficiency would be on the nastier land en route to Ares 4.

I could have gone further, but I need life support while recharging.

The CO2 gets absorbed through a chemical process, but if the fan that pushes it isn’t working, I’ll choke. The oxygen pump is also kind of important.

I set up the solar cells. It was hard work; last time I had Raven's help.

They aren’t heavy, but they’re awkward. After setting up half of them, I figured out I could drag them rather than carry them and that sped things  
up.

Now I’m just waiting for the batteries to recharge. I’m bored, so I’m updating the log. I have all the Poirot books in my computer. That’ll help.

It’s going to take 12 hours to recharge, after all.

What’s that, you say? 12 hours is wrong? I said 13 hours earlier?

Well, my friend, let me set you straight.

The RTG is a generator. It’s a paltry amount of power, compared to what the rover consumes, but it’s not nothing. It’s 100 Watts. It’ll cut an hour off my total recharge time. Why not use it?

I wonder what NASA would think about me fucking with the RTG like this. They’d probably hide under their desks and cuddle their slide-rules for comfort."  
\---------------------------------------------------

LOG ENTRY: SOL 71  
"As predicted, it took 12 hours to charge the batteries to full. I came straight home.

Time to make plans for Sirius 4. And I think it’ll be a multi-day field trip.

Looks like power and battery recharging is solved. Food’s not a problem; there’s plenty of space to store things. Water’s even easier than food. I need 2L per day to be comfortable. 

In the long term, I’ll need to bring the Oxygenator. But it’s big and I don’t want to screw with it right now. So I’ll rely on O2 and CO2 filters for Sirius 4. (By the way isn't awesome how I get to name my own missions?)

CO2 isn’t a problem. I started this grand adventure with 1500 hours of CO2 filters, plus another 720 for emergency use. All systems use standard filters (Apollo 13 taught us important lessons). Since then, I’ve used 131 hours of filter on various EVAs. I have 2089 left. 87 days worth.

Plenty. 

The rover was designed to support 3 people for 2 days, plus some reserve for safety. So its O2 tanks can hold enough to last me 7 days. Not enough.

Mars has 1/90 the Earth’s atmospheric pressure. The inside of the rover has 1 atmosphere. So the oxygen tanks are on the inside (less pressure  
differential to deal with). Why does that matter? It means I can bring along other oxygen tanks, and equalize them with the rover’s tanks without having to do an EVA.

So today, I detached one of the Hab’s two 25L oxygen tanks and brought it in to the rover. According to NASA, a human needs 588L of oxygen per day to live. 

Compressed liquid O2 is about 1000 times as dense as gaseous O2 in a comfortable atmosphere. Long story short: with the Hab tank, I have enough O2 to last 42 days. That’ll be plenty.

Sirius 4 will be a 20 day trip.

That may seem a bit long, but I have a specific goal in mind. Besides, my trip to Ares 4 will be at least 40 days. This is a good scale model.

While I’m away, the Hab can take care of itself, but the potatoes are an issue. I’ll saturate the ground with most of the water I have. Then, I’ll  
deactivate the Atmospheric Regulator, so it doesn’t pull water out of the air. It’ll be humid as hell, and water will condense on every surface.

That’ll keep the potatoes well watered while I’m away.

A bigger problem is CO2. The potatoes need to breathe. I know what you’re thinking. “Clarkie, Silly gal! YOU produce carbon dioxide! It’s all part of the majestic circle of nature!”

The problem is: Where will I put it? Sure, I exhale CO2 with every breath, but I don’t have any way to store it. I could turn off the Oxygenator and Atmospheric Regulator and just fill the Hab with my breath over time. But CO2 is deadly to me. I need to release a bunch at once and run away.

Remember the MAV fuel plant? It collects CO2 from the Martian atmosphere. My small crops aren’t nearly as needy as me, so a 10L tank of compressed liquid CO2, vented in to the Hab, will be enough CO2 to do the trick. That’ll take less than a day to create.

So that’s everything. Once I vent the CO2 in to the Hab, I’ll turn off the Atmospheric Regulator and Oxygenator, dump a ton of water on the crops, and head out.

Sirius 4. A huge step forward in my rover research. And I can start tomorrow."

" Clarke Griffin Out."


	15. Chapter 15

The Martian Au :)

(I've noticed in chapters it switches pronouns and names for some reason I'll have to switch programs after this chapter, so If pronouns are wrong or there is a random name please tell me so I can fix it, Thank You.)

======================================  
EARTH

“Hello, and thank you for joining us,” Monroe said to the camera.

“Today on CNN’s Clarke Griffin Report: Several EVAs over the past few days... what do they mean? What progress has NASA made on a rescue option? And how will this affect the Ares 4 preparations?"

“Joining us today is Dr. Marcus Kane, Director of Mars Missions for NASA. Dr. Kane, thank you for coming.”

“A pleasure to be here, Monroe,” Kane said.

“Dr. Kane,” Monroe began, “Clarke Griffin is the most-watched woman in the solar system, wouldn’t you say?”

Kane nodded. “Certainly the most watched by NASA. We have all 12 of our Martian satellites taking pictures whenever her site’s in view. The European Space Agency has both of theirs doing the same.”

“All told, how often do you get these images?”

“Every few minutes. Sometimes there’s a gap, based on the satellite  
orbits. But it’s enough that we can track all her EVA activities.”

“Tell us about these latest EVAs.”  
“Well,” Venkat began, “It looks like she’s preparing Rover 1 for a long trip. On Sol 65, she took the battery from the other rover and attached it with a homemade sling. The next day, she detached 14 solar cells and stacked them on the rover’s roof.”

“And then she took a little drive, didn’t he?” Monroe prompted.

“Yes she did. Sort of aimlessly for an hour, then back to the Hab. She was probably testing it. Next time we saw her was two days later, when she drove 4km away, then back. Another incremental test, we think. Then, over the past couple of days, she’s been stocking it up with supplies.”

“Hmm,” Monroe said, “Most analysts think Clarke's only hope of rescue is to get to the Ares 4 site. Do you think she’s come to the same conclusion?”

“Probably,” Kane said. “She doesn’t know we’re watching. From her point of view, Ares 4 is her only hope.”

“Do you think she’s planning to go soon? He seems to be getting ready  
for a trip.”

“I hope not,” Kane said. “There’s nothing at the site other than the MAV. None of the other presupplies. It would be a very long, very  
dangerous trip, and she’d be leaving the safety of the Hab behind.”

“Why would she risk it?”  
“Communication,” Kane said. “Once he reaches the MAV, he could contact us.”

“So that would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?” 

“Communication would be a great thing. But traversing 3,200km to Ares 4 is incredibly dangerous. We’d rather she stayed put. If we could talk to her, we’d certainly tell her that.”

“She can’t stay put forever, right?” she asked. “Eventually she’ll need to get to the MAV.”

“Not necessarily,” Kane said. “JPL is experimenting with modifications to the MDV so it can make a brief overland flight after landing.”

“I’d heard that idea was rejected as being too dangerous,” Kane said.

“Their first proposal was, yes. Since then, they’ve been working on  
safer ways to do it.”

“With only three and a half years before Ares 4’s scheduled launch, is there enough time to make and test modifications to the MDV?”

“I can’t answer that for sure. But remember, we made a lunar lander from scratch in seven years.”

“Excellent point,” Monroe smiled. “So what are her odds right now?”

“No idea,” Kane said. “But we’re going to do everything we can to bring her home alive.”  
\-----------------------------------------------------------  
“How’d I do today?” Kane asked.

“Eeeh,” Titus said. “You shouldn’t say things like ‘Bring her home alive.’ It reminds people she might die.”

“Think they’re going to forget that?”

“You asked my opinion. Don’t like it? Go fuck yourself.”

“You’re such a delicate flower, Titus. How’d you end up NASA’s Communications Director?”

“Beats the fuck out of me,” Titus said.

“Guys,” said Jackson Ng, Director of JPL. “I need to catch a flight back to LA in three hours. Is Jaha coming or what?”

“Quit bitching, Jackson,” Titus said. “None of us want to be here.”

“So,” said Hermes Flight Director Dante Walls “Who are you, again?”

“Um,”Luna said, “Luna Waters. I work in SatCon.”

“You a director or something?”

“No, I just work in SatCon. I’m a nobody.”

Kane looked to Dante “I put her in charge of tracking Clarke. She gets us the imagery.”

“Huh,” said Dante. “Not the Director of SatCon?”

“Bob’s got more to deal with than just Mars. Luna's handling all the Martian satellites, and keeps them pointed at Clarke.”

“Why Luna?” Dante asked.

“She noticed he was alive in the first place.”

“She gets a promotion cause she was in the hot seat when the imagery came through?”

“No,” Kane frowned, “She gets a promotion cause she figured out he was alive. Stop being a dick, Dante. You’re making her feel bad.”

Dante looked over to Luna. “Sorry.”

Luna looked at the table and managed to say “’k.”

Jaha entered the room. “Sorry I’m late. Let’s get started,” He took his seat. “Kane, what’s Clarke's status?”

“Alive and well,” Kane said. “No change from my email earlier today.”

“What about the RTG. Does the public know about that yet?” Jaha asked.

Titus leaned forward. “So far, so good,” he said. “The images are public, but we have no obligation to tell them our analysis. Nobody has figured it out yet.”

“Why did she dig it up?”  
“Heat, I think,” Kane said. “She wants to make the rover do long trips. It uses a lot of energy keeping warm. The RTG can heat up the interior without soaking battery power. It’s a good idea, really.”

“How dangerous is it?” Jaha asked.

“As long as the container’s intact, no danger at all. Even if it cracks open she'll be ok if the pellets inside don't break. But if the pellets break too, she’s a dead woman.”

“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen,” Jaha said. “JPL, how are the MDV plans coming along?”

“We came up with a plan a long time ago,” Dante said. “You rejected it.”

“Bruce,”Jahaeddy cautioned.

Dante sighed. “The MDV wasn’t made for liftoff and lateral flight. Packing more fuel in doesn’t help. We’d need a bigger engine and don’t have time to invent one. So we need to lighten the MDV.

“We have an idea. The MDV can be its normal weight on primary descent. If we made the heat shield and outer hull detachable, they could ditch a lot of weight after landing at Ares 3, and have a lighter ship for the traverse to Ares 4. We’re running the numbers now.”

“Keep me posted,” Jaha said. He turned to Mindy. “Miss Waters. Welcome to the big leagues.”

“Sir,” Luna said.

“What’s the biggest gap in coverage we have on Clarke right now?”

“Um,” Luna said. “Once every 41 hours, we’ll have a 17 minute gap. The orbits work out that way.”

“You had an immediate answer,” Jaha said. “Good.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I want that gap down to four minutes,” Jaha said. “I’m giving you total authority over satellite trajectories and orbital adjustments. Make it happen.”

“Yes, sir,” Luna said, with no idea how to do it.

Jaha looked to Gustus. “Gustus, your email said you had something urgent?”

“Yeah,” Gustus said. “How long are we gonna’ keep this from the Ares 3 crew? They all think Clarke's dead. It’s a huge drain on morale.”

Jaha looked to Kane.

“Gustus,” Kane said. “We discussed this-“  
“No, you discussed it,” Gustus interrupted. “They think they lost a crewmate. They’re devastated.”

“And when they find out they abandoned a crewmate?” Kane asked,

“Will they feel better then?”

Gustus poked the table with his finger “They deserve to know. You don’t think Commander Lexa can’t handle the truth?” (He Was Secretly hinting to something * wink Wink*)

“It’s a matter of morale,” Kane said. “They can concentrate on getting home-“

“I make that call,” Gustus said. “I’m the one who decides what’s best for the crew. And I say we bring them up to speed.”

After a few moments of silence, all eyes turned to Jaha.

He thought for a moment. “Sorry, Gustus, I’m with Kane on this one,” he said. “But as soon as we come up with a plan for rescue, we can tell Hermes. There needs to be some hope or there’s no point in telling them.”

“Bullshit,” Gustus grumbled, crossing his arms. “Total bullshit,”

“I know you’re upset,” Jaha said calmly, “We’ll make it right. Just as soon as we have some idea how to save Clarke.”

Jaha let a few seconds of calm pass before moving on.

“Ok, JPL’s on the rescue option,” he said with a nod toward Dante.

“But it would be part of Ares 4. How does she stay alive till then? Kane?”

Kane opened a folder and glanced at the paperwork inside. “I had every team check and double-check the longevity of their systems. We’re pretty sure the Hab can keep working for 4 years. Especially with a human occupant fixing problems as they arise. But there’s no way around the food issue. She’ll start starving in a year. We have to send hersupplies. Simple as that.”

“What about an Ares 4 presupply?” Said Jaha. “Land it at Ares 3 instead.”

“That’s what we’re thinking, yeah,” Kane confirmed. “Problem is, the original plan was to launch presupplies a year from now. They’re not ready yet."

“It takes 8 months to get a probe to Mars in the best of times. The positions of Earth and Mars right now... it’s not the best of times. We figure we can get there in 9 months. Presuming she’s rationing her food, she’s got enough to last 350 more days. That means we need to build a presupply in three months. JPL hasn’t even started yet.”

“That’ll be tight,” Dante said. “Making a presupply is a 6 month process. We’re set up to pipeline a bunch of them at once, not to make one in a hurry.”

“Sorry, Dante,” Jaha said. “I know we’re asking a lot, but you have to find a way.”

“We’ll find a way,” Dante said. “But the OT alone will be a nightmare.”

“Get started. I’ll find you the money.”

“There’s also the booster,” Kane said. “The only way to get a probe to Mars with the planets in their current positions is to spend a butt-load of fuel. We only have one booster capable of doing that. The Delta IX that’s on the pad right now for the EagleEye 3 Saturn probe. We’ll have to steal that. I talked to ULA, and they just can’t make another booster in time.”

“The EagleEye 3 team will be pissed, but ok,” said Jaha. “We can delay their mission if JPL gets the payload done in time.”

Dante rubbed his eyes. “We’ll do our best.”

“She’ll starve to death if you don’t,” Jaha said.


	16. Chapter 16

The Martian Au :)

======================================  
EARTH

Kane sipped his coffee and frowned at his computer. A month ago it would have been unthinkable to drink coffee at 9pm. Now it was necessary fuel. Shift schedules, fund allocations, project juggling, out and out looting of other projects... he’d never pulled so many stunts in his life.

"NASA’s a large organization,” he typed. “ It doesn’t deal with sudden change well. The only reason we’re getting away with it is the desperate circumstances. Everyone’s pulling together to save Clarke Griffin, with no interdepartmental squabbling. I can’t tell you how rare that is. Even then, this is going to cost tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars. The MDV modifications alone are an entire project that’s being staffed up. Hopefully, the public interest will make your job easier. We appreciate your continued support, Congressman, and hope you can sway the Committee toward granting us the emergency funding we need.”

He was interrupted by a knock at his door. Looking up, he saw Luna.

“Sorry to bother you,” Luna said.

“No bother,” Kane said. “I could use a break. What’s up?”

“She’s on the move,” she said.

Kane slouched in his chair. “Any chance it’s a test drive?”

She shook her head. "She drove straight away from the Hab for almost two hours, did a short EVA, then drove for another two. We think the EVA was to change batteries.”

Kane sighed heavily. “Maybe it’s just a longer test? An overnight trip, kind of thing?”

“She’s 76km from the Hab,” Luna said. “For an overnight test, wouldn’t she stay within walking distance?”

“Yes she would,” Kane said. “Damn it. We’ve had teams run every conceivable scenario. There’s just no way she can make it to Ares 4 with that set-up. We never saw her load up the Oxygenator or Water Reclaimer. She can’t possibly have enough basics to live long enough.”

“I don’t think she’s going to Ares 4,” Luna said. “If she is, she’s taking a weird path.”

“Oh?” said Kane.

“She went south-southwest. Schiaparelli Crater is southeast.”

“Ok, maybe there’s hope,” Kane said. “What’s she doing right now?”

“Recharging. She’s got all the solar cells set up,” Luna said. “Last time she did that, it took 12 hours. I was going to sneak home for some sleep if that’s ok.”

“Sure, sounds good. We’ll see what she does tomorrow. Maybe she’ll go back to the Hab.”

“Maybe,” Luna said, unconvinced.  
\-----------------------------------------------  
“Welcome back,” Monroe said to the camera. “We’re chatting with Marcus Washington, from the US Postal Service. So, Mr. Washington, I understand the Ares 3 mission caused a Postal Service first. Can you explain to our viewers?”

“Uh yeah,” said Marcus. “Everyone thought he was dead for over two months. In that time, the Postal Service issued a run of commemorative stamps honoring his memory. 20,000 were printed, and sent to post offices around the country.”

“And then it turned out he was alive,” Monroe said.

“Yeah,” said Marcus. “We stopped the run immediately and recalled the stamps, but thousands were already sold. The thing is, we don’t print stamps of living people.”

“Has this ever happened before?” Monroe asked.

“No. Not once in the history of the Postal Service.”

“I bet they’re worth a pretty penny now.”

Marcus chuckled. “Maybe. But not too much. Like I said, thousands were sold. They’ll be rare, but not super rare.”

Monroe chuckled then addressed the camera. “We’ve been speaking with Marcus Washington of the United States Postal Service. If you’ve got a Clarke Griffin commemorative stamp, you might want to hold on to it. Thanks for dropping by, Mr. Washington.”

“Thanks for having me,” Marcus said.

“Our next guest is Dr. Abby Griffin, Flight Psychologist for the Ares missions. Dr. Griffin welcome to the program.”

“Thank you,” Abby said, adjusting her microphone clip.

“Do you know Clarke Griffin personally?”

“Of course, I am her mother after all.” Abby said. “I also did monthly psych evaluations on each member of the crew.”

“What can you tell us about her? Her personality, her mindset?”

“Well,” Abby said, “She’s very intelligent. All of them are, of course. But she’s particularly resourceful and a good problem-solver.”

“That may save her life,” Monroe interjected.

“It may indeed,” Abby agreed. “Also, she’s a good-natured woman. Usually cheerful, with a great sense of humor. She’s quick with a joke. In the months leading up to launch, the crew was put through a grueling training schedule. They all showed signs of stress and moodiness. Clarke was no exception, but the way she showed it was to crack more jokes and get everyone laughing."

“She sounds like a great girl,” Monroe said.

“She really is,” Abby said. “She was chosen for the mission in part because of her personality. An Ares crew has to spend 13 months together. Social compatibility is key. Clarke not only fits well in any social group, she’s a catalyst to make the group work better. It was a terrible blow to the crew when she ‘died."

"And they still think she’s dead, right? The Ares 3 crew?”

“Yes they do, unfortunately,” Abby confirmed. “The higher-ups decided to keep it from them, at least for now. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision.”

Monroe paused for a moment, then said. “All right. You know I have to ask: What’s going through her head right now? How does a human like Clarke Griffin respond to a situation like this? Stranded, alone, no idea we’re trying to help?”

“There’s no way to be sure,” Abby said. “The biggest threat is giving up hope. If she decides there’s no chance to survive, she’ll stop trying.”

“Then we’re ok for now, right?” Monroe said. "She seems to be working hard. She’s prepping the rover for a long trip and testing it. She plans to be there when Ares 4 lands.”

“That’s one interpretation, yes,” Abby said.

"Is there another?”

Abby carefully formed her answer before speaking. “When facing death, people want to be heard. They don’t want to die alone. She might just want the MAV radio so she can talk to another soul before she dies."

"If she’s lost hope, she won’t care about survival. Her only concern will be making it to the radio. After that, she’ll probably take an easier way out than starvation. The medical supplies of an Ares mission have enough morphine to be lethal.”

After several seconds of complete silence in the studio, Monroe turned to the camera. “We’ll be right back."  
\-----------------------------------------------------------  
“Heya, Kane,” came Dante's voice from the speakerphone.

“Dante, Hi,” said Kane. “Thanks for clearing up some time. I wanted to talk about the presupply.”

“Sure thing. What’s on your mind?”

“Let’s say we soft-land it perfectly. How will Clarke know it happened? And how will she know where to look?”

“We’ve been thinking about that,” said Dante. “We’ve got some ideas.”

“I’m all ears,” Kane said.

“We’ll be sending him a comm system anyway, right? We could have it turn on after lading. It’ll broadcast on the rover and EVA suit frequencies. It’ll have to be a strong signal, too."

“The rovers were only designed to communicate with the Hab and each other; the signal origin was presumed to be within 20km. The receivers just aren’t very sensitive. The EVA suits are even worse. But as long as we have a strong signal we should be good."

“Once we land the presupply, we’ll get its exact location from satellites, then broadcast that to Clarke so she can go get it.”

“But she’s probably not listening,” said Kane. “Why would she be?”

“We have a plan for that. We’re going to make a bunch of bright green ribbons. Light enough to flutter around when dropped, even in Mars’s atmosphere. Each ribbon will have ‘CLARKE: TURN ON YOUR COMM’ printed on it. We’re working on a release mechanism now. During the landing sequence, of course. Ideally, about 1000 meters above the surface.”

“I like it,” Kane said. “All she needs to do is notice one. And she’s sure to check out a bright green ribbon if she sees one outside.”

“That’s what we’re thinking,” said Dante.

“All right, good work. Keep me posted,” Kane said.

“Kane,” said Dante. “If she takes the ‘GriffinMobile’ to Ares 4, this’ll all be for nothing. I mean, we can land it at Ares 4 if that happens, but...”

“But she’ll be without a Hab. Yeah,” Kane said. “One thing at a time. Let me know when you come up with a release mechanism for those ribbons.”

“Will do."  
\--------------------------------------------------  
After terminating the call, he saw an email from Luna Waters arrive.

“Clarke's on the move again.”

“Still going in a straight line,” Luna said, pointing to her monitor.

“I see,” Kane said. “She’s sure as hell not going to Ares 4. Unless she’s going around some natural obstacle.”

“There’s nothing for her to go around,” Luna said. “It’s Acidalia Planitia.”

“Are those the solar cells?” Kane asked, pointing to the screen.

“Yeah,” Luna said. “She did the usual 2 hour drive, EVA, 2 hour drive. She’s 156km from the Hab now.”

They both peered at the screen.

“Wait...” Kane said. “Wait, no way...”

“What?” Luna asked.

Kane grabbed a pad of Post-Its and a pen. “Give me her location, and the location of the Hab.”

Luna checked her screen. “She’s currently at... 28.9° N, 29.6°W.”

With a few keystrokes, she brought up another file. “The Hab’s at 31.2°N, 28.5°W. What do you see?”

Kane finished taking down the numbers. “Come with me,” he said, quickly walking out.

“Um,” Luna stammered, following after. “Where are we going?” She asked when she caught up.

“SatCon break room,” Kane said. “You guys still have that map of Mars on the wall?”

“Sure,” Luna said. “But it’s just a poster from the gift shop. I’ve got high quality digital maps on my computer-“

“Nope. I can’t draw on those,” he said. Then, rounding the corner to the break room, he pointed to the Mars map on the wall. “I can draw on that.”

The break room was empty save a computer technician sipping a cup of coffee. The urgency of Kane and Luna's entrance caught his attention.

“Good, it has latitude and longitude lines,” Kane said. Looking at his Post-It, then sliding his finger along the map, he drew an X. “That’s the Hab,” he said.

“Hey,” the technician said. “Are you drawing on our poster?”

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Kane said without looking back. Then, he drew another X. “That’s her current location. Get me a ruler.”

Luna looked left and right. Seeing no ruler, she grabbed the technicians notebook.

“Hey!” The technician protested.

Using the notebook as a straight-edge, Kane drew a line from the Hab to Mark’s location and beyond. Then took a step back. 

“Yup! That’s where she’s going!” Kane said excitedly.

“Oh!” Luna said.

The line passed through the exact center of a bright yellow dot printed on the map.

“Pathfinder!” Luna said. “She’s going to Pathfinder!”

“Yup!” Kane said. “Now we’re getting somewhere. It’s like 800km from her. She can get there and back with supplies on-hand.”

“And bring Pathfinder and Sojourner Rover back with her,” Luna added.

Kane quickly pulled out his cell phone. “We lost contact with it in 1997. If she can get it online again, we can communicate. It might just need the solar cells cleaned. Even if it’s got a bigger problem, she’s an engineer!” Dialing, he added “Fixing shit is her job!”

Smiling for the first time in weeks, he held the phone to his ear and awaited a response. “Dante? It’s Kane. Everything just changed.  
Clarke's headed for Pathfinder. Yeah! I know, right!? Dig up everyone who was on that project and get them to JPL now. I’ll catch the next flight.”

Hanging up, he grinned at the map. “Clarke, you sneaky, clever, son of a bitch."


	17. Authors Note: Story On Pause

I'm sorry. 

I'm being put in the hospital, and I don't know how long I will be in there. So this story will have to be on pause until I get out.

Thank you for reading this story. I hope I get out soon enough to begin this again.

While you're waiting ill link masterlists (by others with names of course)

This masterlist is by : Clexa's Kru

http://clexaskru.tumblr.com/ficrecs

This masterlist is by : You're The Commander?

http://yourethecommander.tumblr.com/post/131462207466/clexa-fic-recs-please

This masterlist is by : You mean a lot to me. A lot.

http://storytime-writings.tumblr.com/post/115382348846/my-clexa-fic-rec-list

 

 

 

The Martian Au :)


	18. NOT A UPDATE

NOT A UPDATE!

I will not be doing anything on archive of our own for awhile.

I am going in for brain surgery to remove a cyst. I will be recovering and looped up on drugs to actually write a sensible chapter! ( Or any one shots )

 

Thank you for reading, and for when I am well I will update every hour for a couple of days! Thanks for being patient with me!

 

By the way if anyone of you want to continue this while I am recovering message me or comment! (soon rather than later) And I will let you continue from where I was, and I'll probably add it to my story when I've gotten better!


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